“Fair and fragrant, like myself, are they?” she made reply. “Give them to me.” She took them, and bent over them. “The blushing rose,” she said, gravely, “the stately lily, the royal carnation, the golden moly, the purple amaranth, the green bryon, the diosanthos, the sertula, the sweet modest saliunca, fit emblems of Callista. Well, in a few hours they will have faded; yes, they will get more and more like her.”

She paused and looked him steadily in the face, and then continued: “Agellius, I once had a slave who belonged to your religion. She had been born in a Christian family, and came into my possession on her master’s death. She was unlike any one I have seen before or since; she cared for nothing, yet was not morose or peevish or hard-hearted. She died young in my service. Shortly before her end she had a dream. She saw a company of bright shades, clothed in white, like the hours which circle round the god of day. They were crowned with flowers, and they said to each other, ‘She ought to have a token too.’ So they took her hand, and led her to a most beautiful lady, as stately as Juno and as sweet as Ariadne, so radiant in countenance that they themselves suddenly looked like Ethiopians by the side of her. She, too, was crowned with flowers, and these so dazzling that they might be the stars of heaven or the gems of Asia for what Chione could tell. And that fair goddess (angel you call her) said, ‘My dear, here is something for you from my Son. He sends you by me a red rose for your love, a white lily for your chastity, purple violets to strew your grave, and green palms to flourish over it.’ Is this the reason why you give me flowers, Agellius, that I may rank with Chione? and is this their interpretation?”

“Callista,” he answered, “it is my heart’s most fervent wish, it is my mind’s vivid anticipation, that the day may come when you will receive such a crown, nay, a brighter one.”

“And you are come, of course, to philosophize to me, and to put me in the way of dying like Chione,” she made answer. “I implore your pardon. You are offering me flowers, it seems, not for a bridal wreath, but for a funeral urn.”

“Is it wonderful,” said Agellius, “that the two wishes should have gone together in my heart; and that while I trusted and prayed that you might have the same Master in heaven as I have myself, I also hoped you would have the same service, the same aims, the same home upon earth?”

“And that you should speak one word for your Master and two for yourself!” she retorted.