s forefend!--Yes, we
have found each other, we love each other. Why should I conceal it?"

"And Mary, his mother--what has she to say to it?" asked Gorgo.

"I do not know," replied Dada abashed.

"But she is his mother, you know!" cried Gorgo severely. "And he will
never--never--marry against her will. He depends on her for all that he
has in the world."

"Then let her keep it!" exclaimed Dada. "The smaller and humbler the home
he gives me the better I shall like it. I want his love and nothing more.
All--all he desires of me is right and good; he is not like other men; he
does not care for nothing but my pretty face. I will do whatever he bids
me in perfect confidence; and what he thinks about me you may judge for
yourself, for he is going to put me in the care of his tutor Eusebius."

"Then you have accepted his creed?" asked Gorgo. "Certainly I have," said
Dada.

"I am glad of that for his sake," said the merchant's daughter. "And if
the Christians only did what their preachers enjoin on them one might be
glad to become one. But they make a riot and destroy everything that is
fine and beautiful. What have you to say to that--you, who were brought
up by Karnis, a true votary of the Muses?"

"I?" said Dada. "There are bad men everywhere, and when they rise to
destroy what is beautiful I am very sorry. But we can love it and cherish
it all the same."

"You are happy indeed if you can shut your eyes at the dictates of your
heart!" retorted Gorgo, but she sighed. "Happy are they and much to be
envied who can compel their judgment to silence when it is grief to hear
its voice. I--I who have been taught to think, cannot abandon my
judgment; it builds up a barrier between me and the happiness that
beckons me. And yet, so long as truth remains the highest aim of man, I
will bless the faculty of seeking it with all the powers of my mind. My
betrothed husband, like yours, is a Christian; and I would I could accept
his creed as unflinchingly as you; but it is not in my nature to leap
into a pool when I know that it is full of currents and
whirlpools.--However, the present question has to do with you and not
with me. Marcus, no doubt, will be happy to have won you; but if he does
not succeed in gaining his mother's consent he will not continue happy
you may rely upon it. I know these Christians! they cannot conceive of
any possible joy in married life without their parents' blessing, and if
Marcus defies his mother he wi