The mother of the little boy, less grateful than she might have been, hastened away with her struggling, screaming son, and very soon the voice of the fountain, which had for the time been lost in the tumult, was again heard, and the gentle motion of the clear waters rocked the budding lilies on its breast undisturbed, as before. * * * * * Some months later a letter from Cynthia to Hermione, written with a finely-pointed quill on smooth parchment, was delivered by a messenger at the House of the Vestals at Rome--for Cynthia had never forgotten her promise, and her letters, at first mere scrawled hieroglyphics, had been the greatest events in her sad life; for Hermione lived in the shadow, tolerated simply because of her rank and wealth, but looked upon, as I have said, with suspicion and dislike by the proud Vestal Maxima, Cœlia Concordia; and all those who wished to win favour with her kept aloof from Hermione. How many sad and disappointed lives, bound by the fetters of an enforced vow, have been hidden alike in the House of the Vestals, and later in the monasteries of mediæval times! Of all pathetic cries which ascend to the Throne of the Father of us all is the cry of the woman who, mistaking her true vocation as a helper and consoler, has chafed like a bird against its prison bars, to obtain the liberty which alone gives the zest to service. Hermione had, indeed, ceased to struggle against her fate, and a cold and numb despair had destroyed her beauty, and made her a prematurely old woman. Her eyes were too dim to read Cynthia’s letter in the shadows of the atrium, and she hid it in her robe, and took it with her to the familiar spot on the Cælian Hill, where she had so often come as a young maiden with Hyacintha Severa, and had watched over the lovely child who had inherited her grace and wonderful gifts of mind and person. “From the Museum Street of the city Alexandria, Cynthia, the daughter of Casca Severus, greets with affection Hermione, a Vestal virgin, in the House of the Vestals at Rome. “When I wrote to you last, dear friend, I was but a child; and now, though but eighteen months have passed away, I am no longer ‘little Cynthia,’ but a woman. Ah! dear Hermione, it is a beautiful gift of God--our God--this heritage of woman. I am as one who has been toying with flowers in the valley, contented with the flowers, and thinking of nothing above them, and then suddenly lifted on a mountain top, whence there lies stretched out a lovely landscape, and a voice tells me it is mine, that I reign over it, and that the blue arch of heaven above me encircles me with love. Yes, Hermione, as by a miracle your little Cynthia has forgotten her childish days, and has come into possession of her inheritance as a woman.