handsome
youths, exchanging confidences with all the enthusiasm of youthful
friendship. They were the "Dioscuri," Julius and Totila.

Oh, happy time! when the uncorrupted soul, breathing the fresh morning
air of life, as yet untired and undeceived, and drunk with the ecstasy
of ambitious dreams, is urged to impart to an equally young, equally
rich and equally enthusiastic nature its overflowing sentiments!

The noblest resolves are strengthened, and imagination wings its way to
the very gates of heaven, in the happy certainty that he who listens
will understand.

When the wreath upon our brows is faded, and the harvest of our life is
ripe, we may smile at these dreams of youth and youthful friendship;
but it is no smile of mockery; it is tinged with the melancholy with
which we think of the sweet, exhilarating airs of spring, while
inhaling the breath of decay in autumn.

The young Goth and the young Roman had met at the age most favourable
to the formation of the bond of friendship. Totila's sunny soul had
preserved all the dewy bloom of youth; with smiling eyes he looked
forth into the smiling future. He loved his fellow-creatures, and won
all hearts by his amiability and the joyous frankness of his
disposition. He believed in the complete victory of good over evil.
Where meanness and wickedness met him in his path, he trod them into
the dust with the holy anger of an archangel; from the depths of his
gentle nature the latent heroic strength broke forth, and he did not
rest until the hated elements were destroyed. But the disturbance was
forgotten as soon as overcome, and life and the world again appeared to
him as harmonious as his own soul. He walked through the crowded
streets of Neapolis with a song upon his lips, the idol of the girls,
the pride of his brothers in arms.

With such a nature Totila was the favourite of all who knew him,
receiving and imparting happiness. Even his quiet friend imbibed
somewhat of the charm of his temperament.

Julius Montanus, of a sensitive and thoughtful disposition, of an
almost feminine nature, had been early left an orphan, and, awed by the
immense superiority of his guardian Cethegus, had grown up shy, lonely
and studious. More oppressed than elevated by the cheerless science of
his time, he was apt; to look upon life as earnest and almost sad. He
was inclined to subject all things to the severe test of superhuman
perfection, and his natural self-distrust might easily h