aborers and servants? They were healthy and
contented. What power on earth could induce them--a race that clung
devotedly to custom--to desert the faith of their fathers, and the
time-honored traditions to which they owed all the comforts and
pleasures of life, or to seek in a strange creed the aid which they
already believed that they possessed.

He did not repent of his determination; but he nevertheless said to
himself that, when once he was gone, Mary would proceed only too soon
on the work of extermination and destruction; and every temple on the
estate, every statue, every whispering grotto, every shrine and stone
anointed by pious hands, doomed now to perish, rose before his fancy.

Demetrius was accustomed to rise at cock-crow and go to bed at an early
hour, and he was on the point of retiring even before the usual time,
when Marcus came to his room and begged him to give him yet an hour.

"You are angry with my mother," said the younger man with a look of
melancholy entreaty, "but you know there is nothing that she would not
sacrifice for the faith. And you can smile so bitterly! But only put
yourself in my place. Loving my mother as I do, it is acutely painful
to me to see another person--to see you whom I love, too, for you are
my friend and brother--to see you, I say, turn your back on her so
completely. My heart is heavy enough to-day I can tell you."

"Poor boy!" said the countryman. "Yes, I am truly your friend, and am
anxious to remain so; you are not to blame in this business--and for
that matter, I am anything but cheerful. You have chosen to say: Down
with the shrines! Perish all those who do not think as we do! Still,
look at the thing as you will, in some cases certainly violence must
ensue--nay, if no blood is shed it will be a wonder! You sum up the
matter in one common term: The heathen peasants on the estate. My view
of it is totally different; I know these farmers and their wives and
children, each one by name and by sight. There is not one but is ready
to bid me good day and shake my hand or kiss my dress. Many a one has
come to me in tears and left me happy.--By the great Zeus! no one ever
accused me of being soft-hearted, but I could wish this day that I were
harder; and my blood turns to gall as I ask--What is all this for--to
what possible end?"

"For the sake and honor of the faith, Demetrius; for the eternal
salvation of our people."

"Indeed!" retorted Demetrius with a drawl, "I k