He nodded, and added, "I and my father."

"But he," the girl eagerly put in, "was a great man."

"Till Fate overtook him," Andreas said.

Melissa's tearful eyes showed the warm sympathy she felt, as she asked:

"But how could it have happened that you were not ransomed by your
relations? Your father was, no doubt, a Roman citizen; and the law--"

"The law forbids that such a one should be sold into slavery," Andreas
broke in, "and yet the authorities of Rome left him in misery--left--"

At this, her large, gentle eyes flashed with indignation, and, stirred to
the depths of her nature, she exclaimed:

"How was such horrible injustice possible? Oh, let me hear. You know
how truly I love you, and no one can hear you."

The wind had risen, the waves splashed noisily against the broad boat,
and the song of the slaves, as they plied their oars, would have drowned
a stronger voice than the freedman's; so he sat down by her side to do
her bidding.

And the tale he had to tell was sad indeed.

His father had been of knightly rank, and in the reign of Marcus Aurelius
he had been in the service of Avidius Cassius, his fellow-countryman, the
illustrious governor of Asia as 'procurator ab epistolis'. As holding