persuasives which the voice and eyes of Callista would kindle in his
heart. There was nothing glorious or heroic in being confined in a lumber
cellar, no one knowing anything about it; and he did not mean to keep him
there for ever.

As the next day wore on towards evening, rumour brought a piece of news
which he was at first utterly unable to credit, and which for the moment
seemed likely to spoil the appetite which promised so well for his evening
repast. He could hardly believe his ears when he was told that Callista
was in arrest on a charge of Christianity, and at first it made him look
as black as some of those Egyptian gods which he had on one shelf of his
shop. However, he rallied, and was very much amused at the report. The
imprisonment indeed was a fact, account for it as one could; but who
_could_ account for it? "Varium et mutabile:" who could answer for the
whims and fancies of womankind? If she had fallen in love with the owl of
Minerva, or cut off her auburn tresses, or turned rope-dancer, there might
have been some shrugging of shoulders, but no one would have tried to
analyze the motive; but so much his profound sagacity enabled him to see,
that, if there was one thing more than another likely to sicken Agellius
of Christianity, it was to find one who was so precious to him suffering
from the suspicion of it. It was bad enough to have suffered one's self in
such a cause; still he could conceive, he was large-minded enough to
grant, that Agellius might have some secret satisfaction in the antagonist
feeling of resentment and obstinacy which that suffering might engender:
but it was carrying matters too far, and no comfort in any point of view,
to find Callista, his beloved, the object of a similar punishment. It was
all very well to profess Christianity as a matter of sentiment, mystery,
and singularity; but when it was found to compromise the life or limbs of
another, and that other Callista, why it was plain that Agellius would be
the very first to try and entreat the wayward girl to keep her good looks
for him, and to be loyal to the gods of her country; and he chuckled over
the thought, as others have done in other states of society, of a
love-scene or a marriage being the termination of so much high romance and
fine acting.

However, the next day Aristo came down to him himself, and gave him an
account at once more authentic and more extended on the matter which
interested him. Callista had been cal