one God, and with
my hair I have wiped His feet."

At these words the flashing of her eyes, dark as the sky in a storm,
mingled with tears, and Laeta Acilia said to herself:

"I am pious, and I faithfully perform the ceremonies religion demands,
but in this woman there is a strange feeling of a love divine."

Mary Magdalen continued in ecstasy: "He was the God of Heaven and earth,
and He uttered His parables seated on the bench by the threshold, under
the shade of the old fig-tree. He was young and beautiful. He would have
been glad to be loved. When he came to supper in my sister's house I
sat at His feet, and the words flowed from His lips like the waters of
a torrent. And when my sister complained of my sloth, saying: 'Master,
tell her it is but right that she should aid me to prepare the supper,'
He smiled and made excuse for me, and permitted me to remain seated at
His feet, and said that I had chosen the good part.

"One would have thought to see Him that He was but a young shepherd from
the mountains, and yet His eyes flashed flames like those that issued
from the brow of Moses. His gentleness was like the peace of night and
His anger was more terrible than a thunderbolt. He loved the humble and
the little ones. Along the roadside the children ran towards Him and
clung to His garments. He was the God of Abraham and Jacob, and with
the same hands that had created the sun and the stars, He caressed the
cheeks of the newly born whom their happy mothers held out to Him from
the thresholds of their cottages. He was himself as simple as a child,
and He raised the dead to life. Here among my companions you see my
brother whom He raised from the dead. Behold, lady! Lazarus bears on his
face the pallor of death, and in his eyes is the horror of one who has
seen hell."

But for some moments past Laeta Acilia had ceased to listen.

She raised towards the Jewess her candid eyes and her small, smooth
forehead.

"Mary," she said, "I am a pious woman, attached to the faith of my
fathers. Unbelief is evil for our sex. And it does not beseem the wife
of a Roman noble to accept new fashions in religions. And yet I must
confess that there are some charming gods in the East. Your God, Mary,
seems one of these. You have told me that He loves little children, and
that He kisses them as they lie in the arms of their young mothers. By
that I see that He is a God who is favourable to women, and I regret
that He is not held in est