“We have come to draw the water from the spring,” she exclaimed; “little did I think I should find you here. Oh, Ebba, tell me how you came hither!”
“I have been longing to see you, dear mistress, to give you a message. My story is indeed so strange, that even to myself it is scarce like reality.”
“Tell it to me, tell it to me! Oh, Chloe, may I stay, and hear what she says? She was the dear attendant of my mother and myself, in my old home at Verulam. She has brought me a message.”
“You can remain here while I go to the fountain,” said Chloe. She was good-natured and kindly, and the little Hyacintha had been her especial care and joy since the day of her arrival in the house of the vestals, now six months before.
Indeed, Hyacintha had won all hearts. There was a gentle grace about her, and yet a sunny brightness, which made the vestals call her their singing bird.
The deep earnestness of her nature, and her serious desire to fit herself for the high office of a vestal, did not prevent her from entering into every innocent pleasure with the keenest delight.
The anxiety which had awoke in her young heart at Verulam, to find a more excellent way of life than that led by the ladies she saw in her mother’s society, had been a weight upon her child-heart. But now she had found, as she believed, her vocation; and while leaving far behind her, her young companions in the accomplishments in which they were all instructed, she was always simple and humble, and her exceeding beauty, which was increasing month by month, did not make her vain.
“A great gift to lay at the shrine of the goddess,” Terentia had told her, and Hyacintha joyfully laid down that gift, and would gladly lay down others also, for the honour of the goddess who had the sacred fire in her keeping.
Ebba could scarcely restrain her expressions of admiration as Hyacintha seated herself on a stone bench beneath an outspread ilex tree, and said,
“Now, Ebba, my message, my message! Dear Ebba, you look so happy now, no longer like a sad slave, but free and happy.”