crowd of
worshippers, all in holiday garb, were to pass in front of the Prefect's
residence, and if only they could effect this great march through the
city in the right frame of mind, it might confidently be expected
that every one who was not avowedly Jew or Christian, would join
the procession. It would thus become a demonstration of overwhelming
magnitude and Cynegius, the Emperor's representative, could not fail to
see what the feeling was of the majority of the towns folk, and what it
was to drive matters to extremes and lay hands on the chief temples of
such a city.

To Olympius the orator, grown grey in the exercise of logic and
eloquence, it seemed but a small matter to confute the foolish doubts
of a wilful girl. He would sweep her arguments to the winds as the
storm drives the clouds before it; and any one who had seen the two
together--the fine old man with the face and front of Zeus, with
his thoughtful brow and broad chest, who could pour forth a flood of
eloquence fascinatingly persuasive or convincingly powerful, and the
modest, timid girl--could not have doubted on which side the victory
must be.

To-day, for the first time, Olympius had found leisure for a prolonged
interview with his old friend Karnis, and while the girls were in
the garden, amusing little Papias by showing him the swans and tame
gazelles, the philosopher had made enquiries as to the Christian girl's
history and then had heard a full account of the old musician's past
life. Karnis felt it as a great favor that his old friend, famous now
for his learning--the leader of his fellow-thinkers in the second city
of the world, the high-priest of Serapis, to whose superior intellect
he himself had bowed even in their student days--should remember his
insignificant person and allow him to give him the history of the
vicissitudes which had reduced him--the learned son of a wealthy
house--to the position of a wandering singer.

Olympius had been his friend at the time when Karnis, on leaving
college, instead of devoting himself to business and accounts, as his
father wished, had thrown himself into the study of music, and at once
distinguished himself as a singer, lute-player and leader of heathen
choirs. Karnis was in Alexandria when the news reached him of his
father's death. Before quitting the city he married Herse, who was
beneath him alike in birth and in fortune, and who accompanied him
on his return to Tauromenium in Sicily, where h