"Dost thou not remember, Ammonius, that evening in our boat upon the dear old Nile, what a distressful time thou didst endure in thine attempt to ask me to become thy wife?" And the little woman laughed and laughed until her eyes were full of happy tears. "Yea," answered Ammonius, "nor indeed do I think that I did ever ask thee at all. I did, after many efforts, get thee to say what words thou wouldst have a man use who loved thee and wanted thee to be his wife, and all I could do was to cry out, ’I say that to thee, Arete--I say all that and more!’ and in mine embarrassment verily I could utter nothing else!" "But," laughed the little woman, "afterward I did make thee say the words over and over again, albeit I might almost as soon have trained a parrot to repeat them." "But I trust thou hast never regretted the trouble thou didst take in teaching me how to court thee," said Ammonius. "Nay, verily," she answered, "but I think it was the most amusing courtship that hath ever happened." And, while husband and wife pleasantly conversed, old Thopt brought the child back to his mother, and announced that Christian women from other farms along the coast had come to offer their congratulations and any assistance that might be needed. It was singular to observe that while the adjacent country, from Apollonia to Cyrene, and all around, was settled by Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, and Romans, and while some women and girls of all of these nationalities, during the next few days, made visits of sympathy to the family at Baucalis, none came except those who were known to each other to be Christians, no matter what their nationality might be. Practically the faith of Jesus had broken down all ethnic, social, and political barriers among those who professed it; and the only class distinction which was recognized at all was between those who were Christians and those who were not. The persecution, which had begun seven years before under the Emperor Valerian, had raged in Libya as fiercely as in any portion of the Roman Empire, and, although intermittent in its character, there had quite recently been cruelties enough, extending in some instances to martyrdom, chiefly at the instigation of Jewish and pagan priests, to render it necessary for the Christians to conduct their religious rites and social intercourse with a certain degree of secrecy, and to preserve their ancient means of instantaneous recognition in constant use, so that, when a Christian might meet any one who was not familiarly known to him, an almost imperceptible sign served as a challenge by which he was instantly enabled to tell, without an inquiry or a spoken word, whether the stranger might be a Christian or not. Of course, if any one came who failed to recognize the sign, another movement, almost as imperceptible, served to warn all Christians present that there was one near them who did not profess their faith; so that there was little danger in their