“I am once more in the house of the lady Digna, the young matron who, in her beauty and truth, seems to belong rather to the grand simplicity of the Republic than to any people or any period since. Close to her house is a high tower rising above the river, flowing crystal clear as if fresh from the blue hills which you see from the top. We cannot despair of saving the city, the virgin city, that has kept off so many enemies. The traditions of the ancient heroism seem to inspire its men and its women to-day. There are stories of days not so long gone, when the Emperor Julian floated wooden towers on rafts up the river to penetrate into the place where it had no walls. But the citizens set fire to the towers and baffled the Emperor. Impregnable this city of the north wind has been, as the north wind himself in the fastnesses of those rugged mountains. If we can but keep her impregnable this once more, who knows but the hordes of Attila may turn back again from Italy, as they did from Gaul after our battle on the plains of Châlons? There are rumours of discouragement and division in Attila’s camp. The ancient spell of Rome, some say, is falling on them, the memory of Alaric lying dead beneath the river-bed so soon after that last siege and sack; it is said even to have in some measure benumbed Attila himself. Glorious it would be if this old stronghold should by her heroic stand keep back the tide of devastation from our Italy, perchance even drive back for ever the flood of barbarism from the world; and Jerome’s birthplace become the birthplace of a new order and freedom for all Christendom, a new Vulgate or translation of the great old Scriptures of righteousness and peace into the common tongue of men. “The trade has indeed for the moment vanished from her port; the fleets of her merchantmen behold her from afar off; the sea is silent, and the busy fields around are dumb and waste. But if this unusual quiet in the camp of Attila does indeed mean that discouragement has fallen on his hosts, this silence may prove the silence of dawn. But whatever the end, the many heroic deeds done here can never be lost.” After that letter, week after week flowed on, but brought no tidings from Marius. They heard indeed from time to time that Aquileia still held her own, that the great hordes still surrounded the city, apparently checked and baffled there, unable to press on to further destruction while that brave garrison remained unconquered in their rear. From Baithene no one expected tidings until he brought them himself. And so the four on the Aventine were drawn closer to each other, through their common suspense, their common love, their common prayers. Happily for them the natural spring was also the Christian Lent, with its prayers and fasts, to be followed by the Passion-tide, and the solemn, immortal joys of Easter which no sorrow ever more could quench.