The dark eyes of the Vestal looked down on the slight form of Cynthia with a penetrating glance; and, struck with awe, Cynthia hastened to say:-- “The Vestal Maxima was my father’s sister. I came hither with him when a little child, of which I have a dim memory; but my aunt was held in great honour, and love and reverence, by my father and by good Claudius, our friend, and I wish to see her statue.” “Methinks,” said the Vestal, grimly enough, “thou art altogether dreaming. There is one Campia Severina here, but I know of no Severa whose name is recorded on the pedestals: but,” with a stately bow, “you are free to search; the statues are all collected here. There are duplicates of many, but I do not know the name of which you speak.” Then the Vestal disappeared, and Cynthia, disappointed and sad, continued her search. At last one of her ladies exclaimed:-- “Here is a beautiful statue, with no name; only a number-- “No. XIII.” Cynthia gazed up at the statue for a few moments intensely and lovingly. “I think that must be my aunt Hyacintha,” she said; “but oh! how dull and dismal it is here; no sunshine, no warmth. Come, let us depart; it makes me sad to stay.” The ladies obeyed her not unwillingly. Rome might be grand, and had its ancient temples and noble statues, and its yellow, slowly-rolling Tiber; but life was sweeter and brighter far in sunny Alexandria, where the waves of the blue Mediterranean danced and sparkled, and the air and light of heaven were free to come and go. As they ascended from the House of the Vestals, and climbed the Cælian Hill, Cynthia spoke for the first time. The prospect before them was the same over which Hyacintha Severa had so often looked, as child, and fair maiden, and mature woman. “I can think of my aunt better here,” Cynthia said, “the beautiful and the good. I feel her nearer me here than in that dark, gloomy hall; the statue beneath which is only written, ‘No. XIII,’ may be her likeness, but I love to think of her as Claudius told me always to think of her--passed from the darkness of earth into the Light of God, wearing the Crown of Light, after bearing the Cross of suffering. All earthly things fade and vanish, but that Crown fadeth not away. Ah! I am glad I am a Christian!” And now the shadow of the Great Past closes over those whose lives, or rather the fragments of whose lives, we have followed through long years in this little story. The silence which throws its mantle like a veil over the ruins of the temple and the atrium of the Vestals cannot be broken. * * * * *