The company drew nearer to the fire, one of the members giving a preliminary poke at the log, while Oldstone, after tapping his snuff-box and taking from its inside a copious pinch of snuff to clear his memory, threw himself back in his easy-chair, and folding his hands, commenced his story thus:-- When I was in Rome, many years ago, with my friend and brother antiquary, Rustcoin, well-known to most of you gentlemen, and especially to my friend Mr. Vandyke McGuilp. We had put up together during the early part of our stay in a large Hotel in a fashionable quarter of the city. We were both young then, and furnished with ample means for travelling. It had been the dream of my youth to visit the eternal city, and here I found myself, free for the first time in my life to wander about to my heart's content among the venerable ruins of antiquity, the history of which had so interested me from my boyhood. Being neither pushed for time nor money, having a comfortable little income left me upon the death of my parents, I never could make up my mind to follow any profession in particular, and having from my youth upwards always had a passion for antiquarian lore, I resolved to make it the study of my life. Rustcoin was similarly situated to myself, and we have always pulled wonderfully together. Not a day passed but some interesting ruin, church, or picture gallery, was explored, a minute description of which was immediately entered into my diary with a view to a grand archaeological work which I intended for the press, and which was afterwards published. We knew the Vatican by heart, St. Peters, and all the chief churches. Had visited the Capitol, the Forum, the Palace of the Caesars, the Colosseum, the baths of Caracalla, of Titus, of Diocletian, the Pantheon and other antique temples. One sight, however, I had not yet been to see, and that was the catacombs. They had always had, from my boyhood, a great fascination for me, those dark, dank, mysterious subterranean labyrinths excavated by those pious enthusiasts, the early Christians, to shelter themselves from the persecutions of their pagan tyrants. Little did their oppressors imagine, I presume, when first a few straggling fanatics assembled clandestinely under the dark arches they had hewn for themselves out of the solid rock to carry on their devotions undisturbed by candle-light, that that little sect would one day fill the wide world with its followers to the utter extinction of the old pagan superstitions. How strange is destiny! Religious faith proved too strong for tyranny. Persecutions and martyrdoms were of no avail, for still the faith increased. The very victims of the faith, too, the holy martyrs magnified into heroes after death, as if in defiance of the old creed.