The tropical sun was just rising along the Libyan coasts, when old Thopt came into the apartment in which sat Ammonius awaiting news of his wife, bearing in her arms a creature that was swaddled up in such innumerable bandages that it looked like a new and diminutive mummy, and, presenting this pygmy to the father, the old woman said: "It is a man-child, and a fine one! But he hath a forehead like a ram." And Ammonius carefully but awkwardly took the parcel into his own hands, and looked upon it with curious emotion, whereupon the manikin began to cry so suddenly and vigorously that Ammonius would have let it drop upon the floor if old Thopt had not seized it just as the lapse began. "How fareth the little man’s mother?" said he, "and may I not go in to see her immediately?" "She rallieth from her trial wonderfully," answered old Thopt, "and even now inquireth after thee." And the great, rough, swarthy man went into his wife’s room, and, bending over her, he kissed her with exceeding tenderness: "May the Lord help thee, mother," he said, "for thou art mother now, and doubly dear to me!" "Bless thee, husband!" said Arete; "and remember that thou hast promised me that, if the babe should prove to be a boy, thou wouldst have him educated for the ministry of Christ. May the Lord raise him up for his own glory!" "Amen!" replied Ammonius, fervently. "I did so promise thee, Arete, and will so do if the Lord will. Already our pleasant farm is so famous for its excellent cattle, that whereas I did call the house Baucalis because, when the wind bloweth from the east, the water runneth through the narrow entrance into the little bay, with a murmur like the gurgling of wine from a bottle, the neighbors call the place Boucalis because they say that no land in all Cyrenaica produceth more or better cattle. So, little mother, thou need not fear but that with the cattle and with shipments of corn to Alexandria, whence the merchants transport it unto Puteoli and Rome far across the sea, we shall be able to give thy boy all proper training to become a presbyter, or even a bishop, if he liveth and showeth a godly disposition." "And thou wilt never let the love of gain, nor of worldly honors, grow upon thee until thou shalt repent thee of this purpose, and so determine that it would be better for the boy to betake himself to business affairs and acquire wealth rather than to serve God wholly?" "Nay, verily," cried Ammonius; "for the matter lieth nearer to my heart than even thou knowest, Arete." "For what reason, then, good husband?"