Virgilia | Page 5

the Island in the Tiber where the Temple was, had warned them against exciting the invalid. It might cause her death, he said.
Virgilia knew, however, that the time must come soon when, if she was loyal to her faith, she must refuse to offer outward homage to the pagan gods.
In spite of her belief in Christ and her desire to serve him, her heart grew cold within her and her limbs trembled at the thought of that dread time, for she was very delicate and her mother's will was strong. How could she defy her mother? It was an awful crime in pagan Rome to refuse to offer libations and flowers before the shrines of the family gods, a crime punishable by death.
Had she strength to stand firm?

II.
THE "LITTLE FISH."
In the meantime, Martius was still under the roof of his father's house. It looked now as if he would be allowed to stay there, for his step-mother's illness and the quiet condition of her mind during her convalescence, gave rise to the hope that when completely recovered, she would be no longer so intolerant and would permit the religious differences to be forgotten.
Aurelius Lucanus was a broad-minded man. In his business as a lawyer and pleader of cases in the Law Courts of the Forum, he had come into personal contact with several of the Christians, finding them to be men and women of the strictest rectitude and following stern moral codes, such as were notably unobserved by the Roman of that day.
One of his clients was a widow, Octavia, wife of Aureus Cantus, the Senator, a woman of rare mental gifts and a personality which was at once gracious and commanding. She had two children, a boy and girl, a little older than Martius and Virgilia, and the lawyer, while saying nothing, had noticed that his son was not averse to lingering in the office when the sweet Hermione came with her mother to consult him on some subjects dealing with her husband's will and the large property interests now coming under the widow's control.
Octavia did not live in the handsome house formerly occupied when her husband was living on the same street where Aurelius Lucanus dwelt, preferring to leave it in charge of her freedman and his wife, who had served her family for many years. She occupied a villa about two miles from the city gates, where there were immense vineyards, festooned between mulberry trees. The vines were now hung with great purple clusters of grapes, promises of luscious fruits a little later, when the time of the Vendemmia should come in October. Then, there would be feasting and merriment among the servants, but no dancing or drinking, as was the custom on other grape plantations, so numerous on the broad Campagna around Rome.
Before Martius had been sent away from home, by his step-mother's orders, in the main hope that the poison of Christian belief would be drawn from his mind, he had been a student in his father's office, going with him daily at nine o'clock and returning at two for the family dinner. Now, he resumed his studies for the legal profession, and once more walked proudly by his father's side through the crowded passageways of the city and the broad, handsome streets of the Forum. Martius was a little taller than his father.
Aurelius Lucanus was, like many another pagan, no great believer in the gods, although, partly from regard to prevailing sentiment, partly because of his business relations, he outwardly gave attention to the formal customs of the day.
This morning, as father and son entered the Forum, passing by the great statue of Jupiter standing in front of the temple dedicated to his worship, Aurelius bowed profoundly, and muttered a prayer, but Martius, his proud young head held high, passed by, without making his obeisance.
The two were followed, as usual, by a servant, who happened this morning to be Alyrus, the Moor. He closely observed Martius and a faint smile or sneer added to the ugliness of his disfigured face. Alyrus had a fine face, so far as form and feature went, but his expression was full of cunning and revenge. In his ears he wore two huge gold rings, chased in cabalistic characters of strange design. They were the emblem of his chieftain power in that land bordering on the desert, from which he had been so rudely carried away. It was not strange that Alyrus, a barbarian, should bear in his heart a bitter hatred for the Romans and all that belonged to them. A slave, he was, and Sahira, too, but they loathed their bonds. It did not occur to Alyrus to be grateful that when they were placed on a platform down yonder at the lower end of the Forum,