"Good," said Sibyl, quietly; "and I too."

"And thou too!" exclaimed Septimius. "Not so, Sibyl. I would reserve thee,
good and pure, so that there may be to me the means of redemption,--some
stable hold in the moral confusion that I will create around myself,
whereby I shall by and by get back into order, virtue, and religion. Else
all is lost, and I may become a devil, and make my own hell around me; so,
Sibyl, do thou be good forever, and not fall nor slip a moment. Promise
me!"

"We will consider about that in some other century," replied Sibyl,
composedly. "There is time enough yet. What next?"

"Nay, this is enough for the present," said Septimius. "New vistas will
open themselves before us continually, as we go onward. How idle to think
that one little lifetime would exhaust the world! After hundreds of
centuries, I feel as if we might still be on the threshold. There is the
material world, for instance, to perfect; to draw out the powers of
nature, so that man shall, as it were, give life to all modes of matter,
and make them his ministering servants. Swift ways of travel, by earth,
sea, and air; machines for doing whatever the hand of man now does, so
that we shall do all but put souls into our wheel-work and watch-work; the
modes of making night into day; of getting control over the weather and
the seasons; the virtues of plants,--these are some of the easier things
thou shalt help me do."

"I have no taste for that," said Sibyl, "unless I could make an embroidery
worked of steel."

"And so, Sibyl," continued Septimius, pursuing his strain of solemn