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Rh So then, do not refuse to listen to the complaint I am going to make, but give me your help in my trouble.

EPHRAIM. Abraham, Abraham, what is the matter? Why this extraordinary look of misery on your face? No hermit has ever any right to let himself be worried in mere worldly fashion.

AB. An unspeakable calamity has overtaken me. My sorrow is unbearable.

EPH. Do not weary me with a long drawn-out recital. Explain what your trouble is.

AB. My adopted child, Mary, whom I have looked after with the utmost care for four years, whom I have taken the utmost pains to teach -

EPH. Well, well - what about her?

AB. Oh, dear! She is lost.

EPH. Lost! How?

AB. In a most deplorable way. After her first lapse she secretly ran away.

EPH. And what trick did that old deceiver, the Serpent, employ to tempt her with?

AB. It was an unholy passion she suddenly conceived for a certain false rogue who came along in the dress of a monk