Cynthia was scarcely more than four years old, but she had inherited her father’s gifts and her mother’s Greek grace and delicacy, so that she was wonderfully forward for her age. She would draw with a pointed stick, dipped in her father’s horn, upon the spare sheets of parchment which lay about, and she could already form letters, though her great idea was to “draw pictures.” Claudius would tell her of her aunt, the Vestal Maxima, at Rome, and that they were going over the blue sea to see her and comfort her. “I know,” Cynthia said, one day; “I know you loved that lady, and took Anna out of a dark hole because you promised. She was shut there because she loved Jesus the Lord. Do you know Him? Father never says ‘love;’ he says ‘worship.’ I don’t know what that means!” No; little Cynthia knew only of love, nor had her childish heart grasped as yet the great reality that love--perfect love--is the highest form of worship. For love must serve, and service is adoration, and so the circle is complete, and love must be in all service and in all worship, and both are valueless without it. The day for departure came at last, and the finely-equipped galley in which Claudius had sailed from Rome turned her helm towards the mouth of the great canal at Alexandria, and with sails set, and oars keeping precise time and rhythm, went over the Lake Mareotis, and thence out into the blue waters of the tideless sea. The yellow sand-hills of the desert shone like burnished gold in the evening light; the multitude of sails stood up against the carmine sky which melted above the line of the horizon into the tenderest rose-colour, and again into the palest colour of the calyx of the daffodil, till it was lost in the over-arched blue of the summer night. Stars studded that canopy like eyes of watching love, and Claudius, seated with his little friend, pressed close in his strong arms, felt his whole soul filled with the love of Him who is the Redeemer of the world, and of _him_--wayworn and weary Claudius. Casca strained his eyes over the lines of a closely-written manuscript till the light faded, and then Anna carried away little Cynthia, to the bed prepared for her, where the murmur of the waves against the sides of the ship soon lulled her to sleep. CHAPTER XIV. THE CROSS. The atrium of the Vestals was full of life, and even merriment, one bright morning of late summer, in this same year of 333. The want of sunshine which was so much felt in the winter, was a gain now that the fierce glare of August lay upon the streets of the city, and beat upon the images of the gods and façades of the temples like a furnace.