When, presently, the Christian arrived he expressed himself as very ready to undertake this commission.  His sister was already busied in packing wine and other comforts for the captives-more, no doubt, as Johannes told Berenike, than the three men could possibly consume, even if their imprisonment should be a long one.  His smile showed how confidently he counted on the lady’s liberality, and Melissa quickly put her faith in the young Christian, who would have reminded her of her brother Philip, but that his slight figure was more upright, and his long hair quite smooth, without a wave or curl.  His eyes, above all, were unlike Philip’s; for they looked out on the world with a gaze as mild as Philip’s were keen and inquiring.

Melissa gave him many messages for her father and brothers, and when the lady Berenike begged him to take care that the portrait of her daughter was safely carried to the Serapeum, where it was to contribute to mollify Caesar in the painter’s favor, he praised her determination, and modestly added:  “For how long may we call our own any of these perishable joys?  A day, perhaps a year, at most a lustrum.  But eternity is long, and those who, for its sake, forget time and set all their hopes on eternity—­which is indeed time to the soul—­soon cease to bewail the loss of any transitory treasure, were it the noblest and dearest.  Oh, would that I could lead you to place your hopes on eternity, best of women and most true-hearted mother!  Eternity, which not the wisest brain can conceive of!—­I tell you, lady, for you are a philosopher—­that is the hardest and therefore the grandest idea for human thought to compass.  Fix your eye on that, and in its infinite realm, which must be your future home, you will meet her again whom you have lost—­not her image returned to you, but herself.”

“Cease,” interrupted the matron, with impatient sharpness.  “I know what you are aiming at.  But to conceive of eternity is the prerogative of the immortals; our intellect is wrecked in the attempt.  Our wings melt like those of Ikarus, and we fall into the ocean—­the ocean of madness, to which I have often been near enough.  You Christians fancy you know all about eternity, and if you are right in that—­But I will not reopen that old discussion.  Give me back my child for a year, a month, a day even, as she was before murderous disease laid hands on her, and I will make you a free gift of your cuckoo-cloud-land of eternity, and of the remainder of my own life on earth into the bargain.”

The vehement woman trembled with renewed sorrow, as if shivering with ague; but as soon as she had recovered her self-command enough to speak calmly, she exclaimed to the lawyer: 

“I do not really wish to vex you, Johannes.  I esteem you, and you are dear to me.  But if you wish our friendship to continue, give up these foolish attempts to teach tortoises to fly.  Do all you can for the poor prisoners; and if you—­”