And am I to be thankful?
What for, I wonder?
And pious?
What god has taken any care of me?
Call me an evil demon--call me so! But if Petrus and your Paulus there say that He who is up above us and who let me grow up to such a lot is good, they tell a lie.

God is cruel, and it is just like Him to put it into your heart to throw stones and scare me away from your well." With these words she burst out into bitter sobs, and her features worked with various and passionate distortion.
Hermas felt compassion for the weeping Miriam.

He had met her a hundred times and she had shown herself now haughty, now discontented, now exacting and now wrathful, but never before soft or sad.

To-day, for the first time, she had opened her heart to him; the tears which disfigured her countenance gave her character a value which it had never before had in his eyes, and when he saw her weak and unhappy he felt ashamed of his hardness.

He went up to her kindly and said: "You need not cry; come to the well again always, I will not prevent you." His deep voice sounded soft and kind as he spoke, but she sobbed more passionately than before, almost convulsively, and she tried to speak but she could not.