“I was arrested a few hours ago, and brought hither.” “And is Fulvius fool enough, as well as scoundrel, to trump up an accusation against you, which five minutes will confute? I will go to Tertullus myself, and contradict his absurd charge at once.” “What charge, dearest?” “Why, that you are a Christian.” “And so I am, thank God!” replied Agnes, making on herself the sign of the cross. The announcement did not strike Fabiola like a thunderbolt, nor rouse her, nor stagger her, nor perplex her. Sebastian’s death had taken all edge or heaviness from it. She had found that faith existing in what she had considered the type of every manly virtue; she was not surprised to find it in her, whom she had loved as the very model of womanly perfection. The simple grandeur of that child’s excellence, her guileless innocence, and unexcepting kindness, she had almost worshipped. It made Fabiola’s difficulties less, it brought her problem nearer to a solution, to find two such peerless beings to be not mere chance-grown plants, but springing from the same seed. She bowed her head in a kind of reverence for the child, and asked her, “How long have you been so?” “All my life, dear Fabiola; I sucked the faith, as we say, with my mother’s milk.” “And why did you conceal it from me?” “Because I saw your violent prejudices against us; how you abhorred us as practisers of the most ridiculous superstitions, as perpetrators of the most odious abominations. I perceived how you contemned us as unintellectual, uneducated, unphilosophical, and unreasonable. You would not hear a word about us; and the only object of hatred to your generous mind was the Christian name.” “True, dearest Agnes; yet I think that had I known that you, or Sebastian, was a Christian, I could not have hated it. I could have loved any thing in you.” “You think so now, Fabiola; but you know not the force of universal prejudice, the weight of falsehood daily repeated. How many noble minds, fine intellects, and loving hearts have they enslaved, and induced to believe us to be all that we are not, something even worse than the worst of others!” “Well, Agnes, it is selfish in me to argue thus with you in your present position. You will of course compel Fulvius to _prove_ that you are a Christian.” “Oh, no! dear Fabiola; I have already confessed it, and intend to do so again publicly in the morning.” “In the morning!--what, to-morrow?” asked Fabiola, shocked at the idea of any thing so immediate.