“My dear Agellius,” said Jucundus, “it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you.”

“It strikes me,” Agellius began, “that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but—”

“Ay, ay, that’s the rub,” thought Jucundus; then aloud, “Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius—she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You’ll be quite the talk of the place.”

“That’s just what I don’t want to be,” said Agellius. “I mean to say,” he continued, “that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista—”

“Of course, of course,” interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius’s human respect; “but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I’ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don’t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over.”

Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. “My dear uncle,” said the youth, “you are reproaching me.”