as possible. But after the burial of Marcus she rose no more. After that, she too sank upon the bed of sickness, and husband and brother had to undergo another bereavement.

Worn out in body and in mind, by calamities, by grief, and by long attendance on Marcus, in which she nerved herself to the worst for a time, but only to feel a worse reaction, there was no hope for her now. It was impossible to save her. She must die.

Labeo said nothing. He had foreseen it; he had known it when his boy died. He had then known despair, and had suffered the extreme of anguish. He could feel no more. There lay before him the partner of his life, loved tenderly and faithfully, and he knew that she too was about to leave him. There were times when he yielded to his tenderness or to his grief, but for the most part he sat there rigid, stony, defying Heaven.

But for Cineas the sight of Helena thus passing away was terrible. His mother had died in his childhood. His father's death was the only thing in all his life that had ever troubled him. That death occurred when he was at an age when the feelings are keen, but sorrow, if deep, is short-lived. Here, then, came a sorrow over his soul, and he felt that it would be carried to his grave.

For in childhood, and boyhood, and early manhood, Helena and he had been inseparable, uniting in all tastes and all enjoyments with that strange spiritual sympathy which drew both together, and made one the counterpart of the other. He loved Helena as he never loved any other human being. All the sweetest associations of life were blended with her. No love could be stronger than this, or more enduring.

Helena knew the agony that lay before that brother's heart, how he would miss her, and no more find one who understood himself and his aspirations; how in his clinging affection he would cherish her memory, and make the companion of his

childhood the brightest memory of his later years.

it would be nothing but a memory.

But to him

Now, on that bed from which she expected to rise no more, her soul stood in the presence of the other world, and seemed to see something of its majesty. She spoke now as though she saw what was before her. On Labeo's ears her words fell unheeded; but Cineas heard all, and understood all, and his whole nature thrilled at some of those words which she spake.

All referred to Christ.

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'He is truth. Seek him, and you will find peace.

"He is the only one worth seeking after. Find him, and you gain immortality. He gives eternal life with himself in heaven.

"Oh, Cineas, you have learned all that philosophy can ever tell you, but there is something which you do not know, and you feel the need of it. You crave it, you seek after it. I have found it all in the religion of Christ.

"You know all about God except one thing, and that one thing you can never find out except from Christ. It is the one thing that he teaches. I knew all else before; I only learned from him the one thing,—it is that God loves me. For I know it, I know it, and I love him who first loved me.

"He takes away all fear. Can I fear to die? He before whom I must appear is my Saviour, my Redeemer. He loves me, and I love him. I shall see him, and shall dwell in his presence for ever.

"Cineas, philosophy can give courage, in the face of death, to a philosopher, and make him die calmly; but Christ can take away all fear of death from weak women and from little children. It is his love that does this.

"And now my soul clings to him. He supports me. I love him, and have no fear. Oh, that you had this love! you would then know that all you seek for is found in him."

Such were the words which Helena spoke at intervals, not continuously, with frequent pauses from weakness; and never had Cineas heard words that so affected his heart.

He thought within himself that her pure spirit already saw things unutterable, and that her bright intellect understood the dark mystery of death.

It did not need this new scene to show him that death had no terror to the follower of Christ. He had already learned this from many who had died calmly, murmuring with their last breath the name of their Redeemer. Nor did he think much of mere courage or calmness of themselves in the face of death. For himself, he felt that he could die calmly. Seneca had died nobly; Petronius, joyously. But this he saw, that the courage and the joy of Helena were far different from anything which this world could give. They were more than sublime; they were divine.

As he had desired before to be a Christian, so now he desired it still more. There were difficulties in the way, the cause of which he knew not yet, but was destined to find out one day; and so, as Helena spoke, she seemed glorified in his eyes, and he looked and listened as one might listen to an angel, and longed to be able to share that exalted sentiment, and speak in that heavenly language.

So the days passed, and Helena faded away speaking less and less, in her last thoughts blending together her husband and her brother.

Then delirium came. Her mind wandered back to her happy girlhood. Again she rambled with Cineas amid the beautiful scenes of her home, or sat and talked the hours away under the plane-trees. Her voice murmured the words of old songs, the songs of childhood, the sweet, the never-forgotten; and Cineas, as he listened to that wandering fancy, felt all his own thoughts go back to that bright season, and a longing, yearning homesickness grew over his heart. Oh, to break the

barriers of time, and go back in the years to such a youth amid such happiness! But youth had gone, and, with Helena, happiness also would go. Could he but take the feeling of Helena into his heart, and look up to heaven as she loved to look, and call that his home, as she loved to call it. Then the past might yield in charm to the future.

Strange it was that in her delirium she did not know her husband, but always knew Cineas. It gave a mournful consolation to his mourning heart to know that the one whom he had always loved best of all on earth, could thus forget all others but him. Thus the memories of childhood outlast all others, and in delirium, while the present fades, the past lives.

"Take me away, Cineas, away. I want to go home. Why do you keep me here?"

She looked with a strange imploring expression as she said this. It was her Athenian home, the home of her childhood, to which she wished to return. She did not know where she was, and did not recognize this room or this house as hers. "Will you not go home soon, Cineas, and take me with you? What am I doing here in this strange place?

I am frightened.

Take me home. I want to go home."

Ah, poor weary spirit, thought Cineas, as he tried to soothe

her. You will indeed go home, but not to Athens.

"You shall go home, O my sister!" said he.

"When?" she asked, nervously and eagerly.

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"When? Soon, too soon," he murmured, as the hot tears poured from his eyes.

Home! Oh, yes! Not long did she have to remain, not long to breathe forth her sighs, and implore Cineas to take her thence. Her home was awaiting her, and she gained what she wished, for she was taken home; but it was to a diviner home, and a fairer clime, and a more radiant company than all those which dwelt in her memory—a home beyond the stars, a home eternal in the heavens.

XXXII.

Off to the Wars.

HE blow that had fallen upon the two friends overwhelmed both. Each had his own sorrows, and

neither ventured to hint to the other a single word of consolation.

Gra

For some time Labeo seemed to be bewildered by his grief, and lived and moved about in a state of stupor almost. dually the stupor lessened, but only to make grief more keen. The gloom seemed to gather more darkly around, and every ray of light to have departed for ever.

Gradually the two friends became drawn toward each other, and though at first each had shut himself up in solitude, yet the force of sympathy brought them together. They said little or nothing. They walked over the grounds, or rode over the country, or sat in the hall, commonly in silence, saying nothing but the fewest and most customary words, and yet with all this taciturnity each looked out for the society of the other, and felt restless without it.

All else had gone; friendship was left-the strong friendship of two noble natures, begun in boyhood, cemented and strengthened through years. Each knew the other's character to the inmost heart, and each had proved the other's fidelity. In his present grief each knew that the other suffered. The bereavement of Cineas had not been twofold, like that of Labeo, but his sensitive nature made his feelings keen and his anguish