flat, tiled roof. Here were many plants, blossoming vines and the
gurgling of cool water, as it passed through the mouth of a hideous
gorgan mask and fell into a basin where soft green mosses clung and
ferns waved their feathery fronds.

Seating herself on a granite bench, supported by two carved lions,
Virgilia fell into deep thought. It was the everlasting problem, old
as human life. Ought she to obey her mother, or God? To do the former,
meant to stifle her conscience and destroy her inner life. Worship the
gods she could not since this new, this pure love for the meek and
lovely Jesus had entered into her very being.

She clasped and unclasped her slender white hands in her agitation.
What should she do? If God would only show her where duty lay.

Glorified in the silvery whiteness of the moonlight, arose the
splendid palaces of the Caesars. Virgilia could see them plainly if
she lifted her eyes, for they stood high, on the Palatine Hill. There
was revelry yonder. The notes of flutes and harps came faintly to her
ears. Below, wound the Tiber, back and forth, like the coils of a
huge, glistening serpent. Many boating parties were enjoying the river
and its coolness, while the moon rode high in the heavens and shone
upon the sheeny garments and fair faces of the women.

Up the river, from the port of Ostia, came a big merchant vessel
bringing from Constantinople and Egypt, carpets and costly stuffs,
richly wrought in gold, filmy tissue and rare embroideries for Roman
ladies and papyrus volumes for the learned Senators.

Far out on the Campagna, Virgilia knew that the Christians were