uch for form
so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until
the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and
with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--

VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.
QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.

"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit guileless, wise, beautiful in
Christ. She lived eighteen years, five months, ten days."

[Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]

Alas! the time never came when that costly memorial should be reared.
The violence of persecution soon drove the Empress herself an exile from
her home, and when the storm rolled away there was none left to carry
out her pious wish. Through the long centuries that humble epitaph was
all the memorial of one of the noblest, sweetest, bravest souls that
ever lived. And even that rude slab was not destined always to cover her
remains. After the re-discovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth
century, many of their tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of the grave this very
slab was shivered, and the lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and
there upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for well-nigh fifteen
hundred years, lay in mouldering dust the remains of the maiden martyr,
Valeria Callirho[e:]. Verily _Pulvis et umbra sumus_!

Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company of devout men who bore
the martyrs to their burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus and Aurelius. As they
advanced through the dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
feeble rays, the silence of that under-world seemed almost appalling.
Black shadows crouched around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
the distant passages, dying gradually away in this vast valley of the
shadow of death. Almost in silence their sacred task was completed, and
they softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to leave their
martyred brethren to their last long sleep.

Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous "tramp, tramp," as of armed men.
Then the clang of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through the
vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was seen at the end of a long
arched passage, and the sharp, swift w