its energy from her mind.

'Good citizens and friends,' said she, 'for I am sure I must have some
friends among you, why should you do us such wrong? We are poor and
humble people, and have never had the power, if the will had been ours,
to injure you. Leave us in safety, and, if you require it, we will
abandon our dwelling and even our native Rome--for we are all native
Romans.'

'That, my young mistress, will not serve our turn. Are you not, as you
said, the family of the Christian Macer?'

'Yes, we are.'

'Well,' answered the other, 'that is the reason we seek you, and mean to
have you.'

'But,' replied the girl, 'there must be many among you who would not
willingly harm either Macer or anything that is his. Macer is not only a
Christian, Romans, but he is a good warm-hearted patriot as ever was
born within the compass of these walls. Brutus himself never loved
freedom nor hated tyrants more than he.'

'That's little to the purpose now-a-days,' cried one from the crowd.

'There is not a single possession he has,' continued AElia, 'save only
his faith as a Christian, which he would not surrender for the love he
bears to Rome and to everything that is Roman. Ever since he was strong
enough to draw and wield a sword, has he been fighting for you the
battles of our country. If you have seen him, you have seen how cruelly
the weapons of the enemy have hacked him. On every limb are there scars
of wounds received in battle; and twice, once in Gaul and once in Asia,
has he been left for dead upon the field. It was once in Syria, when the
battle raged at its highest, and Carinus was suddenly beset by more than
he could cope with, and had else fallen into the enemy's hands a
prisoner, or been quickly despatched, that Macer came up and by his
single arm saved his general--'

'A great pity that,' cried many from the crowd.

'Macer,' continued AElia, 'only thought that Carinus then represented
Rome, and that his life, whatever it was, and however worthless in
itself, was needful for Rome, and he threw himself into the breach even
as he would have done for Aurelian or his great captain Probus. Was not
his virtue the greater for that? Was he to feed his own humor, and leave
Carinus to perish, when his country by that might receive detriment?
Macer has never thought of himself. Had he been ambitious as some, he
had now been where Mucapor is. But when in the army he always put by his
own interests. The army, its generals