the riot has suddenly refused to take the test. She can give no reason for
her refusal, and protests she is not a Christian. Her friends say that the
fright has turned her brain, but that if kindly treated and kept quiet,
she will come round, and do all that is required of her. What are we to
do?' "

At last Callista's friends prevailed. It was decided that the judges
should pass over this examination altogether, as if it had been rendered
informal by Callista's conduct. Had they recognised it as a proper legal
process, they must have sentenced and executed her. Such a decision was of
this further advantage to her, that nothing was altered as to her place of
confinement. Instead of being handed over to the state prison, she
remained in her former lodging, though in custody, and was allowed to see
her friends. There had been very little chance of her recovery, supposing
she was mad, or of ever coming out, if she had once gone into the
formidable _Carcer_. Meanwhile the magistrates sent to Carthage for
instructions.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A SICK CALL.

Aristo was not a fellow to have very long distresses; he never would have
died of love or of envy, for honour or for loss of property; but his
present calamity was one of the greatest he could ever have, and weighed
upon him as long as ever any one could. His love for his sister was real,
but it would not do to look too closely into the grounds of it; if we are
obliged to do so, we must confess to a suspicion that it lay rather in
certain outward, nay, accidental attributes of Callista, than in Callista
herself. Did she lose her good looks, or her amiable unresisting
submission to his wishes, whatever they were, she would also lose her hold
upon his affections. This is not to make any severe charge against him,
considering how it is with the common run of brothers and sisters,
husbands and wives; at the same time, most people certainly are haunted by
the memory of the past, and love for "Auld lang syne," and this Aristo
might indeed have had, and perhaps had not. He loved chiefly for the
present, and by the hour.

However, at the present time he was in a state of acute suffering, and,
under its paroxysm, he bethought him again of Cornelius's advice, which he
had rejected, to betake himself to Polemo. He had a distant acquaintance
with him, sufficient for his purpose, and he called on him at the Mercury