eem among the aristocracy and the official
classes, or I would gladly bring him offerings of honey-cakes. But,
listen, Mary the Jewess, appeal to Him, you whom He loves, and demand of
Him for me that which I dare not demand myself, and which my goddesses
have refused."

Laeta Acilia uttered these words with hesitation. She paused and
blushed.

"What is it," Mary Magdalen asked eagerly, "and what desire, lady, has
your unsatisfied soul?"

Gaining courage little by little, Laeta Acilia replied:

"Mary, you are a woman, and though I know you not, I yet may confide to
you a woman's secret. During the six years that I have been married I
have not had a child, and that is a great sorrow to me; I need a child
to love; the love in my heart for the little creature I am awaiting,
and who yet may never come, is stifling me. If your God, Mary Magdalen,
grants me through your intercession what my goddesses have denied me, I
shall say that He is a good God, and I will love Him and I will make my
friends love Him. And like us they are young and rich, and they belong
to the first families of the town."

Mary Magdalen replied gravely:

"Daughter of the Romans, when you shall have received that for which you
ask, may you remember this promise that you have made to the servant of
Jesus."

"I shall remember," she replied. "In the meantime take this purse, Mary,
and divide the money it contains among your companions. Farewell, I
shall return to my house. As soon as I arrive I will send baskets full
of bread and meat for you and your friends. Tell your brother and your
sister and your friends that they may without fear leave the sanctuary
where they have taken refuge and go to some inn on the outskirts of the
town. Helvius, who has great influence in the town, will prevent any one
molesting them. May the gods protect you, Mary Magdalen! When it shall
please you to see me again ask of the passers-by for the house of Laeta
Acilia; any of the citizens will be able to show you the way without
trouble."

II.

IT was six months later that Laeta Acilia, lying on a purple couch in
the courtyard of her house, crooned a little song that had no sense
and which her mother had sung before her. The water sang gaily in the
fountain out of whose shallow basin rose young Tritons in marble, and
the balmy-air gently stirred the murmuring leaves of the old plane-tree.
Tired, languid, happy, heavy as a bee leaving the orchard, the young
woman