d Mr. Sewell, pretending not to remember.

"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great gulf opened in the
Forum, and the Augurs said that the country would not be saved unless
some one would offer himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all
on horseback. I think that was grand. I should like to have done that,"
said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of starry light which
they had when she was excited.

"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a Roman girl, and
Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you like to have him give himself up
for the good of the country?"

"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering.

"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave and grand?"

"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful _never_ to see
him any more," and a large tear rolled from the great soft eyes and fell
on the minister's hand.

"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting is too
bad--too much nerve here, too much solitude, too much pine-whispering
and sea-dashing are going to the making up of this little piece of
workmanship."

"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, "how _you_ like the
Roman history."

"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were such smashers, and
beat everybody; nobody could stand against them; and I like Alexander,
too--I think he was splendid."

"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting brother of the
wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and active--no precocious
development of the moral here."

"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend you another book."

"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at home--it's so still
here. I should be dull if I didn't."

Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed their hungry
look when a book was spoken of.

"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.

"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses
does."

"What book is it?" said Moses.

"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more
particular accounts of the men you read about in history."

"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.

"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get
their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better
worth writing than the men's."

"I should like to be a great ge