tablets, and read, his
cold and pale countenance flushed with a warmth of pleasure usually
wholly strange to him:

"'To Cethegus the Prefect, from Julius Montanus.

"'How long it is, my fatherly preceptor'--(by Jupiter! that sounds
frosty)--'that I have delayed sending you the greeting which I owe you.
The last time I wrote from the green banks of the Ilissos, where I
sought for traces of Plato in the desolated groves of the Akademia, but
found none. I know well that my letter was not cheerful. The sad
philosophers, wandering in the lonely schools, surrounded by the
oppressions of the Emperor, the suspicion of the priests, and the
coldness of the multitude, could only arouse my compassion. My soul was
gloomy; I knew not wherefore. I blamed my ingratitude to you, the most
generous of all benefactors.'

"He has never given me such intolerable names before," observed
Cethegus.

"'For two years I have travelled, accompanied by your slaves and
freedmen, endowed like a King of the Syrians with your riches, through
all Asia and Hellas; I have enjoyed all the beauty and wisdom of the
ancients, and my heart is still unsatisfied, my life empty. Not the
enthusiastic wisdom of Plato; not the gilded ivory of Phidias; not
Homer and not Thucydides gave me what I wanted! At last, at last, here
in Neapolis, in this blooming, God-endowed city; here I found what I
had unconsciously missed and sought for everywhere. Not dead wisdom,
but warm, living happiness.'--(He is in love! At last, thou coy
Hippolyte! Thanks, Eros and Anteros!)--'Oh! my guardian, my father! do
you know what happiness it is for the first time to call a heart that
completely understands you, your own?'--(Ah, Julius!" sighed the
Prefect, with a singular expression of softened sentiment, "as if I
knew it not?)--'a heart to which one can freely open his whole soul?
Oh! if you have ever proved it, rejoice with me! sacrifice to Jupiter,
the fulfiller! For the first time I have found a friend!'

"What does he say?" cried Cethegus indignantly; and starting up with a
look of jealous pain, "The ungrateful boy!"

"'For thou wilt understand it well, until now I had no bosom friend.
You, my fatherly preceptor----'"

Cethegus threw the tablets upon the tortoise-shell table, and walked
hastily up and down the room.

"Folly!" he then said quietly, took up the letter again, and read on:

"'You, so much older, wiser, better, greater than I--you had laid such
a weight of g