The Wanderer, wearied by his travel under the noonday sun, comes upon a woman by the wayside whom he asks where he may quench his thirst.

She conducts him through the neighbouring thicket, when an architrave, half-buried in the moss, and bearing an effaced inscription, catches his eye.

They reach the woman's hut, which he finds to have been constructed from the stones of a ruined temple.

Asleep in the hut is the woman's infant son, whom she leaves in the arms of the Wanderer, while she goes to fetch water from the spring.

She presses on him a piece of bread, the only food she has to offer, and invites him to remain till the return of her husband to the evening meal.