nd exclaiming, 'The doors must be
secured--Ulpius may be near--the senator may return!' endeavoured to
cross the room. But his strength was unequal to the effort; he leaned
back for support against the wall, and breathlessly repeating, 'Secure
the doors--Ulpius, Ulpius!' he motioned to Antonina to descend.

She trembled as she obeyed him. Remembering her passage through the
breach in the wall, and her fearful journey through the streets of
Rome, she more than shared her father's apprehensions as she descended
the stairs.

The door remained half open, as she had left it when she entered the
house. Ere she hurriedly closed and barred it, she cast a momentary
glance on the street beyond. The gaunt figures of the slaves still
moved wearily to and fro, amid the mockery of festal preparation in
Vetranio's palace; and here and there a few ghastly figures lay on the
ground contemplating them in languid amazement. Over all other parts of
the street the deadly tranquillity of plague and famine still prevailed.

Hurriedly ascending the steps, Antonina hastened to assure her father
that she had obeyed his commands, and that they were now secure from
all intrusion from without. But, during her brief absence, a new and
more ominous prospect of calamity had presented itself before the old
man's mind.

As she entered the room, she saw that he had returned to his couch, and
that he was holding before him the little wooden bowl which had
contained his last supply of food, and which was now empty. He
addressed not a word to her when he heard her enter; his features were
rigid with horror and despair as he looked down on the empty bowl; he
muttered vacantly, 'It was the last provision that remained, and it was
I that exhausted it! The beasts of the forest carry food to their
young, and I have taken the last morsel from my child!'

In an instant the utter desolateness of their situation--forgotten in
the first joy of their meeting--forced itself with appalling vividness
upon Antonina's mind. She endeavoured to speak of comfort and hope to
her father; but the fearful realities of the famine in the city now
rose palpably before her, and suspended the vain words of solace on her
lips. In the midst of still populous Rome, within sight of those
surrounding plains where the creative sun ripened hour by hour the
vegetation of the teeming earth, where field and granary displayed
profusely their abundant stores, the father and daughter