Possibly the last named was the witness on the purchaser’s side, and Severus on the seller’s. However this may be, we trust we have laid before our readers all that is known about the profession, as such, of Diogenes and his sons. We left Pancratius amused at Majus’s rude attempts in glyptic art; his next step was to address him. “Do you always execute these inscriptions yourself?” “Oh, no,” answered the artist, looking up and smiling. “I do them for poor people who cannot afford to pay a better hand. This was a good woman who kept a small shop in the _Vianova_, and you may suppose did not become rich, especially as she was very honest. And yet a curious thought struck me as I was carving her epitaph.” “Let me hear it, Majus.” “It was, that perhaps some thousand years hence or more, Christians might read with reverence my scratches on the wall, and hear of poor old Pollecla and her barley stall with interest, while the inscription of not a single emperor, who persecuted the Church, would be read or even known.” “Well, I can hardly imagine that the superb mausoleums of sovereigns will fall to utter decay, and yet the memory of a market-wife descend to distant ages. But what is your reason for thinking thus?” “Simply because I would sooner commit to the keeping of posterity the memory of the pious poor than that of the wicked rich. And my rude record may possibly be read when triumphal arches have been demolished. It’s dreadfully written though, is it not?” [Illustration: A gallery in the Cemetery of St. Agnes, on the Nomentan Way.] “Never mind that; its simplicity is worth much fine writing. What is that slab leaning against the wall?” “Ah, that _is_ a beautiful inscription brought us to put up; you will see the writer and engraver were different people. It is to go to the cemetery at the Lady Agnes’s villa, on the Nomentan way. I believe it is in memory of a most sweet child, whose death is deeply felt by his virtuous parents.” Pancratius took a light to it, and read as follows: [Illustration: Inscription of the Cemetery of Saint Agnes.] “The innocent boy Dionysius lieth here among the saints. Remember us in your holy prayers, the writer and the engraver.” “Dear, happy child!” continued Pancratius, when he had perused the inscription: “add me the reader, to the writer and carver of thine epitaph, in thy holy prayers.” “Amen,” answered the pious family. But Pancratius, attracted by a certain husky sound in Diogenes’s voice, turned round, and saw the old man vigorously trying to cut off the end of a little wedge which he had driven into the top of the handle of his pick-axe, to keep it fast in the iron; but every moment baffled by some defect in his vision, which he removed by drawing the back of his brawny hand across his eyes. “What is the matter, my good old friend?” said the youth kindly. “Why does this epitaph of young Dionysius particularly affect you?”