r her cheeks. She advanced with
the greatest caution (as if fearful of being overheard) until she
gained the part of the floor still strewn with the ruins of the broken
lute. Here she knelt down, and pressed each fragment that lay before
her separately to her lips. Then hurriedly concealing a single piece
in her bosom, she arose and stole quickly away in the direction by
which she had come.

'Be patient till the dawn,' muttered her faithless guardian, gazing
after her from his concealment as she disappeared; 'it will bring to
thy lute a restorer, and to Ulpius an ally!'

CHAPTER 6.

AN APPRENTICESHIP TO THE TEMPLE.

The action of our characters during the night included in the last two
chapters has now come to a pause. Vetranio is awaiting his guests for
the banquet; Numerian is in the chapel, preparing for the discourse
that he is to deliver to his friends; Ulpius is meditating in his
master's house; Antonina is stretched upon her couch, caressing the
precious fragment that she had saved from the ruins of her lute. All
the immediate agents of our story are, for the present, in repose.

It is our purpose to take advantage of this interval of inaction, and
direct the reader's attention to a different country from that selected
as the scene of our romance, and to such historical events of past
years as connect themselves remarkably with the early life of
Numerian's perfidious convert. This man will be found a person of
great importance in the future conduct of our story. It is necessary
to the comprehension of his character, and the penetration of such of
his purposes as have been already hinted at, and may subsequently
appear, that the long course of his existence should be traced upwards
to its source.

It was in the reign of Julian, when the gods of the Pagan achieved
their last victory over the Gospel of the Christian, that a decently
attired man, leading by the hand a handsome boy of fifteen years of
age, entered the gates of Alexandria, and proceeded hastily towards the
high priest's dwelling in the Temple of Serapis.

After a stay of some hours at his destination, the man left the city
alone as hastily as he entered it, and was never after seen at
Alexandria. The boy remained in the abode of the high priest until the
next day, when he was solemnly devoted to the service of the temple.

The boy was the young Emilius, afterwards called Ulpius. He was nephew
to the high priest, to whom he had