assument pennas,
sicut aquilae,' 'Sursum corda!' you must soar, Agellius."

" 'Sursum corda!' " answered he; "I know those words. They are old
friends; where have I heard them? I can't recollect; but they are in my
earliest memories. Ah! but, my father, my heart is below, not above. I
want to tell you all. I want to tell you about one who has enthralled my
heart; who has divided it with my True Love. But I daren't speak of her,
as I have said; I dare not speak, lest I be carried away. O, I blush to
say it; she is a heathen! May God save her soul! Will He come to me, and
not to her? 'Investigabiles viae ejus.' "

He remained silent for some time; then he said, "Father, I mean to
dedicate myself to God, simply, absolutely, with His grace. I will be His,
and He shall be mine. No one shall come between us. But O this weak
heart!"

"Keep your good resolves till you are stronger," said the priest. "It is
easy to make them on a sick-bed. You must first reckon the charges."

Agellius smiled. "I know the passage, father," he said, and he repeated
the sacred words: "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

Another time Agellius said: "The Martyrs; surely the old bishop used to
say something about the Martyrs. He spoke of a second baptism, and called
it a baptism of blood; and said, 'Might his soul be with the Martyrs!'
Father, would not this wash out every thing, as the first?"

It was now Caecilius who smiled, and his eyes shone like the sapphires of
the Holy City; and he seemed the ideal of him who, when

"Called upon to face
Some awful moment to which heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for humankind,
Is happy as a lover, and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired."

However, he soon controlled himself, and said, "Quo ego vado, non potes me
modo sequi; sequeris autem postea."

CHAPTER XIV.

A SMALL CLOUD.

This sort of intercourse, growing in frequency and fulness, went on for
about a week, till Agellius was able to walk with support, and to leave
the cottage. The priest and his own slave took him between them, and
seated him one evening in sight of the glorious prospect, traversed by the
long shadow of the far mountains, behind which the sun was making its way.
The air was fil