ughter of Edom?" cried the old man.
"Bring her here! here she will be well hidden!"

"No," interposed Miriam, "not here! no, no!"

"Why not, thou strange child?" asked her father in a tone of annoyance.

"This is no place for a bride--this chamber--it would bring her no
blessing."

"Be not uneasy," said Totila, as he went to the door, "I shall soon
put an end to secrecy by sueing for her hand openly. Farewell!" He
hastened out.

Isaac took the spear, the horn, and several keys from the wall, and
followed in order to open the gate for Totila, and make the round of
all the doors of the great tower.

Miriam remained alone.

For a long time she stood with closed eyes motionless on the same spot.

At last she passed both hands over her forehead and cheeks, and looked
about her.

The room was very quiet; through the open window stole the first beam
of moonlight. It fell silvery upon Totila's white mantle, which hung in
long folds over a chair. Miriam ran and covered the hem of the mantle
with burning kisses. She took the glittering helmet, which stood near
her upon the table, and pressed it tenderly to her heart with both
arms. Then holding it a little way from her, she gazed upon it dreamily
for a few moments, and, at last--she could not resist--she lifted it up
and placed it upon her lovely head. She started as the heavy bronze
touched her forehead, and then, stroking back her dark braids, she
pressed the cold hard steel firmly upon her brow. She then took it off,
and set it, looking shyly round, in its former place, and going to
the window she looked out into the magic moonlight and the scented
night-air. Her lips moved as if in prayer, but the words of the prayer
were the same old song:

"By the waters of Babylon
We sat down and wept.
O daughter of Zion, when comes the day
Which stills thy heavy pain?"

CHAPTER XXII.

While Miriam was gazing silently at the first pale stars, Totila's
impatience soon brought him to the villa of the rich trader, which lay
at about an hour's distance from the Porta Capuana.

The slave who kept the gate told him to go to the old Hortularius,
Valeria's freedman, who had the care of the garden. This freedman had
been admitted to the lovers' confidence, and now took the plants from
the supposed gardener's boy, and led him into his sleeping-room, the
low windows of which opened into the garden. The n