f the senate, at first the especial dignitary of the patricians, was
subsequently the choice of the people. The less national and less
honored deities were usually served by plebeian ministers; and many
embraced the profession, as now the Roman Catholic Christians enter the
monastic fraternity, less from the impulse of devotion than the
suggestions of a calculating poverty. Thus Calenus, the priest of Isis,
was of the lowest origin. His relations, though not his parents, were
freedmen. He had received from them a liberal education, and from his
father a small patrimony, which he had soon exhausted. He embraced the
priesthood as a last resource from distress. Whatever the state
emoluments of the sacred profession, which at that time were probably
small, the officers of a popular temple could never complain of the
profits of their calling. There is no profession so lucrative as that
which practises on the superstition of the multitude.

Calenus had but one surviving relative at Pompeii, and that was Burbo.
Various dark and disreputable ties, stronger than those of blood, united
together their hearts and interests; and often the minister of Isis
stole disguised and furtively from the supposed austerity of his
devotions; and gliding through the back door of the retired gladiator, a
man infamous alike by vices and by profession, rejoiced to throw off the
last rag of an hypocrisy which, but for the dictates of avarice, his
ruling passion, would at all time have sat clumsily upon a nature too
brutal for even the mimicry of virtue.

Wrapped in one of those large mantles which came in use among the Romans
in proportion as they dismissed the toga, whose ample folds well
concealed the form, and in which a sort of hood (attached to it)
afforded no less a security to the features, Calenus now sat in the
small and private chamber of the wine-cellar, whence a small passage ran
at once to that back entrance, with which nearly all the houses of
Pompeii were furnished.

Opposite to him sat the sturdy Burbo, carefully counting on a table
between them a little pile of coins which the priest had just poured
from his purse--for purses were as common then as now, with this
difference--they were usually better furnished!

'You see,' said Calenus, that we pay you handsomely, and you ought to
thank me for recommending you to so advantageous a market.'

'I do, my cousin, I do,' replied Burbo, affectionately, as he swept the
coins into