f both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the
suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of
the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow
thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their
apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of
the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning
voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its
most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a
sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to
overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista
might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing
more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his
offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his
severely virtuous censors.

But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we
are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary
for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history.
His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which
had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact,
and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit
for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a
moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his
dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of
the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a
currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common
vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of
each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately
preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the
high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which
it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm
and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius's heart beat
when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the
very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast,
though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it.

"My dear Agellius," said Jucundus, "it would be a most suitable
proceeding. I