“What will you do to-morrow night?” Ethne asked, a royal instinct of providing for others always deep in her heart. “Perhaps we may creep back home again,” the woman said. At first she seemed afraid to say more; but no one could hesitate long to confide in Ethne. And soon her story came out. “The Huns are gone,” Ethne said, “and the Romans and Goths are pursuing them.” But that scarcely seemed to comfort the poor mother. She explained that though the Huns were their worst enemies, as they destroyed their crops and burnt their homes, still, whoever ruled, they, the peasants, were always slaves, sure to be compelled to work as hard and live on as little as possible, whether the masters were Goths or Romans; and it seemed that in some respects the Roman tax-gatherers were the worst oppressors of all, because they understood best how to wring out the last farthing. Then, seeing Ethne’s sympathetic distress, she took to comforting her in turn, and confided to her that her husband and the men of the family were in hiding not far off, and that they had little secret storehouses of fruits and grain. She told her also of a wonderful old man, who lived alone in a cave of the forest, and spoke of the good Lord and Saviour, and baptized the little ones and taught them, and sometimes gathered them together for the Holy Eucharist. And so Ethne was comforted. At last they reached the river Seine, and found a few frightened boatmen willing to row them up to Troyes, which they reached in safety on the fourth evening after they left Orleans. There Eleazar found his friends, but received a scant welcome. “Why came you hither?” they said. “Of what use is it to be at the meeting-place of roads going in every direction, when the stations on all the roads are abandoned, and many of the roads themselves broken up? The Huns are pushing on through the country. Some of their horsemen galloped past the town yesterday, and to-morrow we may be overwhelmed by the whole flying host.” The wilful old man was convinced for once that he had made a mistake, but he said— “Who can say which way is the worst? Southward are the Romans and Goths, victorious; here are the Huns, defeated. The victorious Romans are as bad for us to encounter as the defeated Tartars. Little choice for us between heathen vanquished and Christian victors. What will the citizens of Troyes do?” “We have no defence,” was the grim reply. “Troyes has no walls.” “Why then,” said Eleazar, “do you not all take flight at once?” “Troyes has a Bishop,” was the reply; “a great saint, who is clothed in rough raiment, and lives on nothing, they say, like our Elijah. He is called Lupus. The people believe in him; they believe the city is walled around by his prayers.” “Another Anianus! another living saint!” murmured Ethne, turning with shining eyes on her brother. “We shall be saved, but I wonder how!” Eleazar’s acquaintance resumed—