Her favourite topics of conversation were embroidered mantles, and robes of Tyrian dye; and if her husband sought to check her, by remarking that such expensive articles could never be obtained by them, she answered impatiently, “Why not? People can have what they will. The Greeks got into Troy, didn’t they?” Sometimes she would add, in an undertone of vexation, “But they were not such Greeks as thou art.” Undoubtedly, he _was_ a vexation to an earth-born woman--that mild, dreamy, saintly man! The distance between them inevitably grew wider and wider; and the process was hastened by changes in the condition of Hermotimus. Though he had become more healthy in youth, than he was in infancy, there had never been a complete union between his soul and body. The inner and outer circles of his being, instead of clasping into each other, touched only at one point, and so remained nearly strangers. At the time of his marriage, he was believed to have outgrown the feebleness of his childhood, and to have lost the power of prophecy. But two years afterward, he fell asleep one day in the same grotto of Apollo to which his mother had been accustomed to carry offerings. He came out pale and chill, and was that night seized with a singular kind of fits, which continued to attack him more and more frequently. The old gossip was renewed. The neighbours said his father, the divine Apollo, had kissed him in his sleep, and he would never be like other men. Praxinoë nursed him carefully, for she had a kindly heart. But when the fits were on him, he inspired a degree of awe amounting almost to terror; for his looks and words impressed her with a strong conviction that he was some sort of a Spirit, and not a mortal man. At times, he told her the most secret thoughts of her heart, and repeated word for word what had been said to her, when he was out of hearing. He frequently described magnificent cities, gorgeous birds, and beautiful flowers, she had never seen or heard of. But what made her shudder more than all else, was the familiar intercourse he described with relatives and friends long since dead. If she were alone with him, during these strange visitations, he never answered when she spoke, or gave any indication that he was aware of her presence. But there was one person, to whose questions he always replied. In the neighbouring city of Clazomenæ lived a Pythagorean philosopher, named Prytanes. He heard rumours of the singular childhood of Hermotimus, and of the extraordinary fits that had come upon him in manhood; and he was desirous to ascertain how far these accounts had been exaggerated. When he made his first visit to him who was called The Sleeping Prophet, he found him lying upon a couch motionless and senseless. He took hold of his hand, and found it cold and rigid; but a change went over the countenance, like the light which drives shadows across the fields; and Hermotimus said, “I am glad you have come again;