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Updated: May 31, 2025
Scoring whitely their tracery of intricate lines, the groups go by in whorls, in angles, in sweeping circles, and the ice shrinks beneath them; here a fairy couple slide along, waving and bowing and swinging together; far away some recluse in his pleasure sports alone with folded arms, careening in the outward roll like the mast of a phantom-craft; everywhere inshore clusters of ruddy-cheeked boys race headlong with their hawkey-sticks, and with their wild cries, making benders where the ice surges in a long swell: and constantly in Beltran's wake slips Vivia, a scarlet shadow, while a clumsy little black outline is ever designing itself at her heels as Ray strives in vain to perfect the mysteries of the left stroke.
They had been children together in Carthage, and the martyrdom that Vivia Perpetua had suffered in her young womanhood had impressed Pentaur more than all the agony he had seen other Christians endure. When she gave up her life, he had clinched his hands, and muttered fierce words against Carthage's gods, words he afterward trembled to recall.
But Beltran would tell you that you haven't got any country. You may love your native State. As for country, it's nothing but a what-you-may-call-it." "Very true. It is in observing the terms of that what-you-may-call-it, that federation, that bond, in mutual concessions, in fraternal remembrances, that we gain a country. And what a country!" "Yes, what a country, Vivia!
"Vivia," said Ray, facing her, "I asked you a question. Why didn't you answer it? Shouldn't you care?" "You know, dear child, I should, we all should, terribly." "But, Vivia, I mean, that you that I"
'We have come here, they said, 'of our own free will, that we might not be deprived of our freedom. We have forfeited our lives in order to be delivered from doing such things. Even the heathen could see the justice of this, and the Christians were not compelled to wear the things. In the amphitheatre, Vivia Perpetua and Felicitas were put into a net, and allowed to be attacked by a wild cow.
Vivia walks beside the old slave in her infantile dignity, and disregards the sundry attempts of Ray's outstretched arms, till of a sudden the beating play of hoofs runs along the ground, and Beltran, with his morning's game, races by on his fiery mustang, and, scarcely checking his speed as he passes, stoops from the saddle and lifts the little girl before him.
"I don't believe," urged Vivia, "but for exceptional abuses, there's a system providing for a happier peasantry on the face of the earth." "It can't be a good system that allows such abuses." "There are even abuses of the sacraments." "Pshaw, Vivia!" "Well, Ray, I don't believe in this pseudo-chivalry of yours, any more than Beltran does." "If Beltran said black was white, you'd think that true!"
The house was a barrack; now down in her Maryland peach-orchards the black muzzles of Federal cannon yawned, and under the flickering shadows and sunshine the grimy gunners, knee-deep in grass and dew, brushed away the startled clover-blooms, as they touched fire to the breach. Beltran was a Rebel. Vivia was a Rebel, too! She ran down-stairs into her little parlor overflowing with flowers.
"Two striking examples before you," said little Jane, with a laugh, as she looked at her old print and at Vivia's gray gown. "I wasn't thinking of you. I saw the ladies in the village yesterday, they were pied and parded." "Children," said Mrs. Vennard from within, "I've taken up the coffee now. I sha'n't wait a minute longer. Vivia, I'll beat an egg into yours."
"Oh!" broke forth Timokles earnestly, "I know a death that was a glorious victory! Carthage knew of it! Didst thou not hear what was done last year at Carthage? Didst thou not know of the Christian lady, Vivia Perpetua, and the Christian slave, Felicitas?" A shudder ran through Pentaur, as Timokles continued: "Thinkest thou that what they suffered was nothing?
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