she was
dizzied by their brutal vociferations and rapid motion, and that breath
and atmosphere of evil which steamed up from the rankness of their
impiety! O the thankfulness which rose up in her heart, though but vaguely
directed to an object, when she found the repose and quiet, though it was
that of a prison! for young as she was, she had become tired of all things
that were seen, and had no strong desire, except for meditation on the
great truths which she did not know.

One day passes and then another; and now the morning and the hour is come
when she must appear before the magistrates of Sicca. With dread, with
agitation, she looks forward to the moment. She has not yet a peace within
her. Her peace is the stillness of the room in which she is imprisoned.
She knows it will pass away when she leaves it; she knows that again she
must be in the hands of cruel, godless men, with whom she has no sympathy;
but she has no stay whereon to lean in the terrible trial. Her brother
comes to her: he affects to forget her perverseness or delusion. He comes
to her with a smile, and throws his arms around her; and Callista repels,
from some indescribable feeling, his ardent caress, as if she were no
longer his. He has come to accompany her to court, by an indulgence which
he had obtained; to support her there,--to carry her through, and to take
her back in triumph home. My sister,--why that strange, piteous look upon
thy countenance?--why that paleness of thy cheek?--why that whisper of thy
lips?--why those wistful, gentle pleadings of thine eyes? Sweet eyes, and
brow, and cheek, in which I have ever prided myself! Why so backward?--why
so distant and unfriendly? Am I not come to rescue thee from a place where
thou never shouldst have been?--where thou ne'er shalt be again? Callista,
what is this mystery?--speak!

Such as this was the mute expostulation conveyed in Aristo's look, and in
the fond grasp of his hand; while treading down forcibly within him his
memory and his fears of her great change, he determined she should be to
him still all that she had ever been. But how altered was that look, and
how relaxed that grasp, when at length her misery found words, and she
said to him in agitation, "My time is short: I want some Christian, a
Christian priest!"

It was as though she had never shown any tendency before to the proscribed
religion. The words came to him with the intensity of something new and
unimagined hitherto. He