The Sabbath-day came round again, and, with the rising of the sun, young Theckla bounded out of her mother’s room, calling aloud for Arius. It was usual on the Sabbath for the family at Baucalis to go to some house of a Christian in the vicinity, where would be gathered together a small assemblage of the faithful for religious services, or to have the neighbors assemble at the farm for the same purpose. On this day, however, Arete and old Thopt would be necessarily detained at home by the illness of the Egyptian Hatasa; and Ammonius, who still thought it prudent, both upon her account and upon his own, not to inform her that she was enjoying the hospitality of a family belonging to the hated sect that was everywhere spoken against, and that was persecuted throughout Libya even more bitterly than elsewhere in the Roman Empire, ordered that Arius should take charge of Theckla for the day, and determined himself to go to the assembly, in order to consult certain of the brethren about his future course in reference to his involuntary guests. Arius then informed his father about the singular recluse he had met with upon the mountain on the preceding Sabbath, of his promise to visit him upon that day, and asked his permission to go, saying that he would take Theckla with him if his father had no objection to suggest, and would invite the singular and learned old man to visit them. To this Ammonius readily gave his consent, and Arius thereupon told Theckla of the facts, and invited her to accompany him, to which she enthusiastically assented. The farm vineyard produced a wine almost identical with the famous Mareotic, which was praised from the mouth of the Nile to Athens and to Rome. It also produced figs, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, oranges, citrons, lemons, limes, and bananas, which the Christians commonly called the "fruits of paradise," because in that latitude they were in season the whole year through. It also produced various melons, among them a delicious watermelon, yellow on the inside, lotus, and olives. In their garden, also, grew the rose, the jasmine, the lily, the oleander, chrysanthemums, geraniums, dahlias, helianthus, and violets, and they could raise almost every vegetable known to both tropical and temperate zones.