e girl guess that the venerable philosopher, who had listened with
breathless admiration to their joint performance, had taken upon himself
to dissipate her doubts and persuade her into compliance?

Olympius laid the greatest stress on Agne's assistance, for every one who
clung to the worship of the old gods was to assemble in the sanctuary of
Isis; and the more brilliant and splendid the ceremony could be made the
more would that enthusiasm be fired which, only too soon, would be put to
crucial proof. On quitting the temple the crowd of worshippers, all in
holiday garb, were to pass in front of the Prefect's residence, and if
only they could effect this great march through the city in the right
frame of mind, it might confidently be expected that every one who was
not avowedly Jew or Christian, would join the procession. It would thus
become a demonstration of overwhelming magnitude and Cynegius, the
Emperor's representative, could not fail to see what the feeling was of
the majority of the towns folk, and what it was to drive matters to
extremes and lay hands on the chief temples of such a city.

To Olympius the orator, grown grey in the exercise of logic and
eloquence, it seemed but a small matter to confute the foolish doubts of
a wilful girl. He would sweep her arguments to the winds as the storm
drives the clouds before it; and any one who had seen the two
together--the fine old man with the face and front of Zeus, with his
thoughtful brow and broad chest, who could pour forth a flood of
eloquence fascinatingly persuasive or convincingly powerful, and the
modest, timid girl--could not have doubted on which side the victory must
be.

To-day, for the first time, Olympius had found leisure for a prolonged
interview with his old friend Karnis, and while the girls were in the
garden, amusing little Papias by showing him the swans and tame gazelles,
the philosopher had made enquiries as to the Christian girl's history and
then had heard a full account of the old musician's past life. Karnis
felt it as a great favor that his old friend, famous now for his
learning--the leader of his fellow-thinkers in the second city of the
world, the high-priest of Serapis, to whose superior intellect he himself
had bowed even in their student days--should remember his insignificant
person and allow him to give him the history of the vicissitudes which
had reduced him--the learned son of a wealthy house--to the position of a
wandering