Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

00 FMl [OLA; OR
"T am, my child," the old man replied ; "unworthily
likewise the higher office of a priest in God's Church."
I hold
'ugly knelt before him, ami kissed his
hand. The priest placed Lis right himd upon her head, and
said to her :
"Be of good courage, daughter; you are not the first of your
house, whom God has brought into His holy Church, It is
now many years sineo I was culled ill here, under the guise of
a physician, liy a former servant now no more; but in reality it
was to baptize, a few hours before her death, the wife of Fu-
bius."
"My mother !" exclaimed Fabiola. "She died immediately
after giving me birth. And did she die a Christian ?"
"Yes; mid I doubt not that her frpirit has been hovering
about your life by the side of the angel who guards you, guiding
you unseen to this blessed hour. Ami, 1> -;'i.re the throne
of God, she has been unceasing in her supplications on your
behalf."
Joy tenfold filled the breasts of the two friends ; and after
arrangements had been made with Diouysius for the nee,
instructions and preparations for Fabiola' s admission ti>
tism, she went up to the side of Miriam, and taking her hand,
said to her in a low, soft voice :
"Miriam, may i from henceforth call you sister ?" A pressure
of the hand was the only reply which she could give.
With their mistress, the old nurso, Euphroysne, and the
Greek slave, placed themselves, as we now say, under instruc-
tion, to receive baptism on Easter-eve. Nor must we forget
one who was already enrolled in the list of catechumens, and
whom Fubiola had taken home with her and kept, Emerentiana,
the foster-sister of Agnes. It was her delight to make
herself useful, by being the ready messenger between the sickroom
and the rest of the house.
During her illness, as her strength improved, Miriam imparted
many particulars of her previous life to Fabiola; and
as they will throw some light on our preceding narrative, we
will give her history in a continuous form.
Some years before our story commenced, there Lved in
tioch a man who, though
An-
not of ancient family, was rich, and
moved in the highest circles of that most luxurious city. To
keep his position, he was obliged to indulge in great expense ;
and from want of strict, econou-y, he had gradually become
be, highly educated; and besides the Greek language, then
generally spoken at Antioch, he was acquainted with Latin,
whicli he spoke readily and gracefully, as we have seen, though
with a slight foreign accent. In the family, the vernacular
idiom was used with servants, and often in familiar conversation.
Oroutius was not sorry when his father removed him
from his mother's control, and insisted that he should cou-
To follow the dominant an I religion of the state.
As to the daughter, who was three years younger, he did not
so much care, i
I it foolish and unmanly t"
much trouble about religion; to it especially,
or aban-
don that of the empire, was, he thought, a sign of weakness.
But women being more imaginative, and more under the sway
of the feelings, might be indulged in any fancies of thi:
Hngly he permitted his
was Syrian, as the in
daughter Miriam, -whose name
d to a rich family from
ci ;o of her new faith. She
became, in addition to her hi-li mental virtue, wimple and nin
cultivation, a model of
;.i