so scrupulous
fidelity to what could not help itself, could scarcely claim not to be
forgotten, what a contrast to the hard contempt of one's own or other's
pain, of death, of glory even, in those discourses of Aurelius!

But if Marius thought at times that some long-cherished desires were
now about to blossom for him, in the sort of home he had sometimes
pictured to himself, the very charm of which would lie in its contrast
to any random affections: that in this woman, to whom children
instinctively clung, he might find such a sister, at least, as he had
always longed for; there were also circumstances which reminded him
that a certain rule forbidding second marriages, was among these people
still in force; ominous incidents, moreover, warning a susceptible
conscience not to mix together the spirit and the flesh, nor make the
matter of a heavenly banquet serve for earthly meat and drink.

One day he found Cecilia occupied with the burial of one of the
children of her household. It was from the tiny brow of such a child,
as he now heard, that the new light had first shone forth upon
them--through the light of mere physical life, glowing there again,
when the child was dead, or supposed to be dead. The [188] aged
servant of Christ had arrived in the midst of their noisy grief; and
mounting to the little chamber where it lay, had returned, not long
afterwards, with the child stirring in his arms as he descended the
stair rapidly; bursting open the closely-wound folds of the shroud and
scattering the funeral flowers from them, as the soul kindled once more
through its limbs.

Old Roman common-sense had taught people to occupy their thoughts as
little as might be with children who died young. Here, to-day,
however, in this curious house, all thoughts were tenderly bent on the
little waxen figure, yet with a kind of exultation and joy,
notwithstanding the loud weeping of the mother. The other children,
its late companions, broke with it, suddenly, into the place where the
deep black bed lay open to receive it. Pushing away the grim fossores,
the grave-diggers, they ranged themselves around it in order, and
chanted that old psalm of theirs--Laudate pueri dominum! Dead children,
children's graves--Marius had been always half aware of an old
superstitious fancy in his mind concerning them; as if in coming near
them he came near the failure of some lately-born hope or purpose of
his own. And now, perusing intently the