casket
standing on Caesar's writing-table, and Caracalla, holding the
philosopher by the arm, said, with excited emphasis:

"That gem I inherited from my father, the divine Severus. It was engraved
before that child came into the world. Now you shall see it, and if you
then say that it is an illusion--But why should you doubt it? Pythagoras
and your hero Apollonius both knew whose body their souls had inhabited
in a former existence. Mine--though my mother has laughed at my belief,
and others have dared to do the same-mine, five hundred years ago, dwelt
in the greatest of heroes, Alexander the Macedonian--a right royal
tabernacle!"

He snatched the gem from the chamberlain's hand, and while he devoured it
with his eyes, looking from time to time into Melissa's face, he eagerly
ran on:

"It is she. None but a blind man, a fool, a malignant idiot, could doubt
it! Any who henceforth shall dare mock at my conviction that I was
brought into the world to fulfill the life-span of that great hero, will
learn to rue it! Here--it is but natural--here, in the city he founded
and which bears his name, I have found positive proof that the bond which
unites the son of Philip with the son of Severus is something more than a
mere fancy. This maiden--look at her closely--is the re-embodiment of the
soul of Roxana, as I am of that of her husband. Even you must see now how
naturally it came about that she should uplift her heart and hands in
prayer for me. Her soul, when it once dwelt in Roxana, was fondly linked
with that of the hero; and now, in the bosom of this simple maiden, it is
drawn to the unforgotten fellow-soul which has found its home in my
breast."

He spoke with enthusiastic and firm conviction of the truth of his
strange imagining, as though he were delivering a revelation from the
gods. He bade Philostratus approach and compare the features of Roxana,
as carved in the onyx, with those of the young supplicant.

The fair Persian stood facing Alexander; they were clasping each other's
hands in pledge of marriage, and a winged Hymen fluttered above their
heads with his flaming torch.

Philostratus was, in fact, startled as he looked at the gem, and
expressed his surprise in the liveliest terms, for the features of Roxana
as carved in the cameo, no larger than a man's palm, were, line for line,
those of the daughter of Heron. And this sport of chance could not but be
amazing to any one who did not know--as neither of th