t a Stoic in woman's dress, but a woman--a
true woman, as you should be. You have learned nothing from Zeno and
Chrysippus but what any peasant girl might learn from an honest father,
to be true I mean and to love virtue. Be content with that; I am more
than satisfied."

"Oh, Publius," exclaimed the girl, grasping her friend's hand. "I
understand you, and I know that you are right. A woman must be miserable
so long as she fancies herself strong, and imagines and feels that she
needs no other support than her own firm will and determination, no other
counsel than some wise doctrines which she accepts and adheres to. Before
I could call you mine, and went on my own way, proud of my own virtue, I
was--I cannot bear to think of it--but half a soul, and took it for a
whole; but now--if now fate were to snatch you from me, I should still
know where to seek the support on which I might lean in need and despair.
Not in the Stoa, not in herself can a woman find such a stay, but in
pious dependence on the help of the gods."

"I am a man," interrupted Publius, "and yet I sacrifice to them and yield
ready obedience to their decrees."

"But," cried Klea, "I saw yesterday in the temple of Serapis the meanest
things done by his ministers, and it pained me and disgusted me, and I
lost my hold on the divinity; but the extremest anguish and deepest love
have led me to find it again. I can no longer conceive of the power that
upholds the universe as without love nor of the love that makes men happy
as other than divine. Any one who has once prayed for a being they love
as I prayed for you in the desert can never again forget how to pray.
Such prayers indeed are not in vain. Even if no god can hear them there
is a strengthening virtue in such prayer itself.

"Now I will go contentedly back to our temple till you fetch me, for I
know that the discreetest, wisest, and kindest Beings will watch over our
love."

"You will not accompany me to Apollodorus and Irene?" asked Publius in
surprise.

"No," answered Klea firmly. "Rather take me back to the Serapeum. I have
not yet been released from the duties I undertook there, and it will be
more worthy of us both that Asclepiodorus should give you the daughter of
Philotas as your wife than that you should be married to a runaway
serving-maid of Serapis."

Publius considered for a moment, and then he said eagerly:

"Still I would rather you should come with me. You must be dreadfully
tired,