Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/294

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282
OF TEMPORAL TRIBULATION.

mourning, and have recourse to tears. He will believe that his child died a natural death." As she said this, Apollonius entered. Observing their funeral habiliments, he asked, "Do you grieve at my return? Those tears cannot be true if I give occasion to them!" "Alas!" replied the woman, "I would to heaven that another, and not me or my husband, had to detail to you what I must say—Your daughter Tharsia is suddenly dead." Apollonius trembled through every limb; and then stood fixed as a statue.

"Oh woman, if my daughter be really as you describe, have her money and clothes also perished?" "Some part of both," replied Dionysias, "is of course expended; but that you may not hesitate to give faith to our assurances, we will produce testimony in our behalf. The citizens, mindful of your munificence, have raised a brazen monument to her memory, which your own eyes may see. Apollonius, thus imposed upon, said to his servants, "Go ye to the ship; I will visit the grave of my unhappy child." There he read the inscription, as we have detailed above,