patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the
world besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or
ambition attended with outlawry and danger. We can even imagine the
arguments with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention
with Caesar; the uncertainty veiling everything connected with the
King and his coming; the ease, honors, state, purchasable like
goods in market; and, strongest of all, the sense newly acquired
of home, with friends to make it delightful. Only those who have
been wanderers long desolate can know the power there was in the
latter appeal.

Let us add now, the world--always cunning enough of itself; always
whispering to the weak, Stay, take thine ease; always presenting
the sunny side of life--the world was in this instance helped by
Ben-Hur's companion.

"Were you ever at Rome?" he asked.

"No," Esther replied.

"Would you like to go?"

"I think not."

"Why?"

"I am afraid of Rome," she answered, with a perceptible tremor of
the voice.

He looked at her then--or rather down upon her, for at his side
she appeared little more than a child. In the dim light he could
not see her face distinctly; even the form was shadowy. But again
he was reminded of Tirzah, and a sudden tenderness fell upon
him--just so the lost sister stood with him on the house-top
the calamitous morning of the accident to Gratus. Poor Tirzah!
Where was she now? Esther had the benefit of the feeling evoked.
If not his sister, he could never look upon her as his servant;
and that she was his servant in fact would make him always the
more considerate and gentle towards her.

"I cannot think of Rome," she continued, recovering her voice,
and speaking in her quiet womanly way--"I cannot think of Rome as
a city of palaces and temples, and crowded with people; she is to
me a monster which has possession of one of the beautiful lands,
and lies there luring men to ruin and death--a monster which it
is not possible to resist--a ravenous beast gorging with blood.
Why--"

She faltered, looked down, stopped.

"Go on," said Ben-Hur, reassuringly.

She drew closer to him, looked up again, and said, "Why must you
make her your enemy? Why not rather make peace with her, and be
at rest? You have had many ills, and borne them; you have survived
the snares laid for you by foes. Sorrow has consumed your youth;
is it well to give it the remainder of your days?"

The girlish face under his eye