ustice, two fine works
by Aristeas of Alexandria, who flourished in the time of the Emperor
Hadrian. Justice held the scales and sword, Truth was gazing into her
mirror. As the patriarch approached them, he said to the priest who
walked by his side: "Still here!" Then, standing still, he said, partly
to Orion and partly to his companion:

"Your father, I see, neglected my suggestion that these heathen images
had no place in any Christian house, and least of all in one attached,
as this is, to a public function. We, no doubt, know the meaning of the
symbols they bear; but how easily might the ordinary man, waiting here,
mistake the figure with the mirror for Vanity and that with the scales
Venality: 'Pay us what we ask,' she might be saying, 'or else your life
is a forfeit,'--so the sword would imply."

He smiled and walked on, but added airily to Orion:

"When I come again--you know--I shall be pleased if my eye is no longer
offended by these mementos of an extinct idolatry."

"Truth and justice!" replied Orion in a constrained voice. "They have
dwelt on this spot and ruled in this house for nearly five hundred
years."

"It would look better, and be more suitable," retorted the patriarch,
"if you could say that of Him to whom alone the place of honor is due
in a Christian house; in His presence every virtue flourishes of itself.
The Christian should proscribe every image from his dwelling; at the
door of his heart only should he raise an image on the one hand of Faith
and on the other of Humility."

By this time they had reached the court-yard, where Susannah's chariot
was waiting. Orion helped the prelate into it, and when Benjamin offered
him his hand to kiss, in the presence of several hundred slaves and
servants, all on their knees, the young man lightly touched it with
his lips. He stood bowed low in reverence so long as the holy father
remained visible, in the attitude of blessing the crowd from the open
side of the chariot; then he hurried away to join his mother.

He expected to find her exhausted by the excitement of the patriarch's
visit; but, in fact, she was more composed than he had seen her yet
since his father's death. Her eyes indeed, commonly so sober in their
expression, were bright with a kind of rapture which puzzled Orion. Had
she been thinking of his father? Could the patriarch have succeeded in
inspiring her pious fervor to such a pitch, that it had carried her, so
to speak, out of herself