is hand firmly over his brow, and directing
his eyes backwards and forwards incessantly, on object after object, in
every part of the room.

'Listen, child, listen!' he hastily began. 'I tell you there is no
food in the house, and no food in Rome!--we are besieged--they have
taken from us our granaries in the suburbs, and our fields on the
plains--there is a great famine in the city--those who still eat, eat
strange food which men sicken at when it is named. I would seek even
this, but I have no strength to go forth into the byways and force it
from others at the point of the sword! I am old and feeble, and
heart-broken--I shall die first, and leave fatherless my good, kind
daughter, whom I sought for so long, and whom I loved as my only child!'

He paused for an instant, not to listen to the words of encouragement
and hope which Antonina mechanically addressed to him while he spoke,
but to collect his wandering thoughts, to rally his failing strength.
His voice acquired a quicker tone, and his features presented a sudden
energy and earnestness of expression, as if some new project had
flashed across his mind, when, after an interval, he continued thus:--

'But though my child shall be bereaved of me, though I shall die in the
hour when I most longed to live for her, I must not leave her helpless;
I will send her among my congregation who have deserted me, but who
will repent when they hear that I am dead, and will receive Antonina
among them for my sake! Listen to this--listen, listen! You must tell
them to remember all that I once revealed to them of my brother, from
whom I parted in my boyhood--my brother, whom I have never seen since.
He may yet be alive, he may be found--they must search for him; for to
you he would be father to the fatherless, and guardian to the
unguarded--he may now be in Rome, he may be rich and powerful--he may
have food to spare, and shelter that is good against all enemies and
strangers! Attend, child, to my words: in these latter days I have
thought of him much; I have seen him in dreams as I saw him for the
last time in my father's house; he was happier and more beloved than I
was, and in envy and hatred I quitted my parents and parted from him.
You have heard nothing of this; but you must hear it now, that when I
am dead you may know you have a protector to seek! So I received in
anger my brother's farewell, and fled from my home--(those days were
well remembered by me once, but