the usual
youth's garment, the short toga, reaching below the knee, and a hollow
spheroid of gold suspended round his neck. A bundle of papers and vellum
rolls fastened together, and carried by an old servant behind him, shows
us that he is just returning home from school.

While we have been thus noting him, he has received his mother's
embrace, and has sat himself low by her feet. She gazes upon him for
some time in silence, as if to discover in his countenance the cause of
his unusual delay, for he is an hour late in his return. But he meets
her glance with so frank a look, and with such a smile of innocence,
that every cloud of doubt is in a moment dispelled, and she addresses
him as follows:

"What has detained you to-day, my dearest boy? No accident, I trust, has
happened to you on the way."

"Oh, none, I assure you, sweetest mother; on the contrary, all has been
so delightful that I can scarcely venture to tell you."

A look of smiling, expostulation drew from the open-hearted boy a
delicious laugh, as he continued: "Well, I suppose I must. You know I am
never happy if I have failed to tell you all the bad and the good of the
day about myself. But, to-day, for the first time, I have a doubt
whether I ought to tell you all."

Did the mother's heart flutter more than usual, as from a first anxiety,
or was there a softer solicitude dimming her eye, that the youth should
seize her hand and put it tenderly to his lips, while he thus replied:

"Fear nothing, mother most beloved, your son has done nothing that may
give you pain. Only say, do you wish to hear _all_ that has befallen me
to-day, or only the cause of my late return home?"

"Tell me all, dear Pancratius," she answered; "nothing that concerns you
can be indifferent to me."

"Well, then," he began, "this last day of my frequenting school appears
to me to have been singularly blessed. First, I was crowned as the
successful competitor in a declamation, which our good master Cassianus
set us for our work during the morning hours; and this led, as you will
hear, to some singular discoveries. The subject was, 'That the real
philosopher should be ever ready to die for the truth.' I never heard
anything so cold or insipid (I hope it is not wrong to say so) as the
compositions read by my companions. It was not their fault, poor
fellows! what truth can they possess, and what inducements can they have
to die for any of their vain opinions? But to a Christian,