acle.

She was standing by the vehicle; and scarcely had she raised her sweet,
innocent, blushing face with pathetic and touching entreaty to the
white-haired Roman, her large, tear-filled eyes meeting his, when he
beckoned her to him, and in pleasant, sympathetic tones desired to know
what she wanted. Then she made bold to ask whether he were the great
Roman physician, and he replied with a flattered and kindly smile that he
was sometimes so called. Her thankful glance to heaven revealed what a
comfort his words were, and now her rosy lips moved freely, and she
hurriedly, but with growing courage, gave him to understand that her
betrothed, the son of a respected Roman citizen of Alexandria, was lying
badly wounded in the head by a stone, and that the leech who was treating
him had said that none but he, the great Galenus, could save the young
man's life. She also explained that Ptolemaeus, though he had said that
Diodoros needed quiet above all things, had proposed to carry him to the
Serapeum, and to commend him there to the care of his greater colleague,
but that she feared the worst results from the move. She glanced
pleadingly into the Roman's eyes, and added that he looked so kind that
she hoped that he would go instead to see the sufferer, who had, quite by
chance, been taken into a Christian house not very far from the Serapeum,
where he was being taken good care of, and--as a matter of course--cure
her lover.

The old man had only interrupted her tale with a few sly questions as to
her love-affair and her religion; for when she had told him that Diodoros
was under the care of Christians, it had occurred to him that this simply
but not poorly dressed girl, with her modest ways and sweet, calm face,
might herself be a Christian. He was almost surprised when she denied it,
and yet he seemed pleased, and promised to grant her request. It was not
fitting that a girl so young should enter any house where Caesar and his
train took up their abode; he would wait for her, "there"--and he pointed
to a small, round temple to Aphrodite, on the left-hand side of the
street of Hermes, where the road was rather wider--for the coach had
meanwhile slowly moved on.

Next day, at three hours after the rising of the fierce African sun--for
he could not bear its meridian heat--he would go thither in his litter.
"And be sure you are there in good time!" he added, shaking his finger at
her.

"If you come an hour too soon, you will