How glad she was that she still had the four drachmae which she had coaxed out of Karnis in the Xenodochium that evening; she could buy whatever she liked for her lover.  When she went back-loaded with oranges, apples, hard-boiled eggs, bread and salt, in the skirt of her dress that she gathered up with one hand, and with a flask of wine and water, and a gourdbowl in the other-she found him still lying unconscious.  However, when she had moistened his forehead and lips he opened his eyes, and then she peeled him an orange as daintily as she could and begged him to try it, and as she was herself very hungry she took a hearty share.  She was enchanted at making him her guest, and at finding that he enjoyed the simple meal and soon was quite revived.  In fact, in a few minutes he had altogether recovered his strength and consciousness of satisfaction; and as he lay back with Dada’s hand in his, gazing happily and thankfully into her sweet eyes, a sense of peace, rest and bliss came over him such as he had never before known.  He thought he had never tasted such delicious food, or such exquisite wine as the wretched Mareotic from the fruitstall.  He took the apple she had begun eating out of her hand and bit it where her white teeth had been; he made her drink first out of the gourd-cup, and, as one of the three eggs she had brought with her was bad, they had quite a little battle for the last, till he finally gave way and eat it.

When they had finished Dada’s purchases to the last mouthful she asked him, for the first time, where he meant to take her, and he said he intended placing her in the house of his former tutor, Eusebius, the deacon, where she would be a welcome guest and find her old companion Agne.  Of this she was sincerely glad; and when, on hearing the title of Deacon, she questioned Marcus further, and identified Eusebius as the worthy old man whose discourse in the basilica had so deeply impressed her, she told Marcus how she had gone into the church, and how, from that hour, she had felt at peace.  A quite new feeling had sprung up in her soul, and since then she had constantly longed to see him again and talk it all over with him:—­The little she had learnt of Christian doctrine did her heart good and had given her comfort and courage.  The world was so beautiful, and there were many more good men than bad.  It was a pleasure to love one’s neighbor, and as for forgiving a wrong—­that she had never found difficult.  It must be good to live on earth if everyone loved his neighbor as she loved him and he loved her; and life could not be a great hardship if in every trouble there was some one who was always ready to hear our cry and help us, out of pure beneficence.