“I had the honor, when very young, as my father had had before me, to be employed by the noble Fabius in Asia. Ill-health compelled me to leave his service.” Several sheets of fine vellum, cut to a size, evidently for transcription of some book, lay on the table. One of these the good old man placed before the lady, with ink and a reed, and she wrote a few affectionate lines to her father. She doubled the paper, tied a thread round it, attached some wax to this, and impressed her seal, which she drew from an embroidered bag, upon the wax. Anxious, some time, to reward the messenger, when she could better know how, she took another piece of the vellum, and made on it a memorandum of his name and residence, and carefully put this into her bosom. After partaking of some slight refreshment, she mounted her car, and bid Chromatius an affectionate farewell. There was something touchingly paternal in his look, as though he felt he should never see her again. So she thought; but it was a very different feeling which softened his heart. Should she always remain thus? Must he leave her to perish in obstinate ignorance? Were that generous heart, and that noble intellect, to grovel on in the slime of bitter paganism, when every feeling and every thought in them seemed formed of strong yet finest fibres, across which truth might weave the richest web? It could not be; and yet a thousand motives restrained him from an avowal, which he felt would, at present, only repulse her fatally from any nearer approach to the faith. “Farewell, my child,” he exclaimed, “may you be blessed a hundredfold in ways which as yet you know not.” He turned away his face, as he dropped her hand, and hastily withdrew. Fabiola too was moved by the mystery, as well as the tenderness, of his words; but was startled, before reaching the gate, to find her chariot stopped by Torquatus. She was, at that moment, painfully struck by the contrast between the easy and rather familiar, though respectful, manner of the youth, and the mild gravity, mixed with cheerfulness, of the old ex-prefect. “Pardon this interruption, madam,” he said, “but are you anxious to have this letter quickly delivered?” “Certainly, I am _most_ anxious that it should reach my father as speedily as possible.” “Then I fear I shall hardly be able to serve you. I can only afford to travel on foot, or by chance and cheap conveyance, and I shall be some days upon the road.” Fabiola, hesitating, said: “Would it be taking too great a liberty, if I should offer to defray the expenses of a more rapid journey?” “By no means,” answered Torquatus, rather eagerly, “if I can thereby better serve your noble house.”