ristmas with me, Dolly," said her
friend, who until now had hardly been able to get in a word. "I have
five thousand things to talk to you about. My sailor friend has
promised to be here too, if he can, and his ship is in the
Mediterranean somewhere, so I guess he can; and I want you to see him.
Come and spend Christmas Eve with me--do! and then we shall have a
chance to talk before he comes. Of course there would be no chance
after," she added with a confident smile.

Dolly was not much in a mood for visiting, and scantly inclined to mix
in the joyous circle which must be breathing so different an atmosphere
from her own. She doubted besides whether she could leave her watch and
ward for so long a time as a night and a day. Yet it was pleasant to
see Christina, and the opportunity to talk over old times was tempting;
and her friend's instances were very urgent. Dolly at last gave a
conditional assent; and they parted; Dolly and Rupert taking the way
home.

"Is that lady a friend of yours?" Rupert enquired.

"The daughter; not the mother."

"The old lady, I meant. She has a mind to know all about us."

"Why?"

"She asked me about five hundred and fifty questions, after she quitted
you."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her what she knew before," said Rupert, chuckling. "Her stock
of knowledge hasn't grown _very_ much, I guess, by all she got out of
me. But she tried."

Dolly was silent. After a short pause, Rupert spoke again in quite
another tone.

"Miss Dolly, you've put me in a sort of a puzzle. You said a little
while ago, or you spoke as if you thought, that all those grand old
Roman emperors were not after all great men. Then, if _they_ were not
great, what's a fellow to try for? If a common fellow does his best, he
will not get to the hundredth or the thousandth part of what those men
did. Yet you say they were not great. What's the use of my trying, for
instance, to do anything, or be anything?"

"What did they do, Rupert?"

"Well, you seem to say, nothing! But don't you come to Rome to admire
what they did?"

"Some of the things they did, or made. But stand still here, Rupert,
and look. Do you see the Rome of the Caesars? You see an arch here and
a theatre there; but the city of those days is buried. It is under our
feet. The great works of art here, those that were done in their day,
were not done by them. Do you think it is any good to one of those old
emperors in the other world--take th