THE MURDER OF RICCIO.

Now call the witness, John Knox:

"But the erledom of Murray needed confirmation, and many things were to be ratified that concerned the help of friends and servants—and the matter fell so hote betwix the Erle of Murray and John Knox, that familiarlie after that time they spack nott together more than a year and a half."[55]

Thus, if we may believe Knox himself, it was Murray's preference for his own "singular commoditie" over the interests of the kirk of God which caused that "they spake not familiarly together for more than a year and a half." Of "spell" and "enchantress" no word. We refrain from comment.

One remark as to the "spell" Mary had flung over Murray. Even from Mr. Froude's pages may be wrung the unwilling admission that "the stainless Murray" was neither more nor less than the paid and pensioned spy of Elizabeth. Here is another dispatch of Throckmorton, (Elizabeth's ambassador at Paris,)notreferred to by Mr. Froude:

"The Lord James came to my lodgingssecretly unto me, and declared unto me at good length all that had passed between the queen, his sister, and him, and between the Cardinal Lorraine and him, the circumstances whereof he will declare to your majesty particularly when he cometh to your presence."

This business call of Lord James was made during Mary's preparations to leave France for Scotland. He followed it up with a confidential visit of some days to Elizabeth, who allowed him not to depart empty-handed. Unsuspicious of his treachery, Mary heaped honors and riches upon him, made him her first lord of council, and created him successively Earl of Mar and Earl of Murray. And we are asked by Mr. Froude to believe that over such a personage as this "spells" might be successfully flung by the victim of his treachery.

The introduction of Riccio by Mr. Froude (vol. viii. p. 120) is a good specimen of his best art. There is an accusation in every line, an insinuation in every word; yet when he is through, the reader is left in total ignorance of the Italian's real position. Mr. Froude calls him Ritzio, which is a piece of affectation. The name has heretofore been written Rizzio and Riccio. Ritzio, to the English eye, it is true, very nearly represents the Italian pronunciation of Rizzio. The man's name was Riccio, as is well determined by one letter of his, andtwo of his brother Joseph, all still in existence and perfectly accessible to Mr. Froude.

His age, variously stated from thirty to forty, is never put at less than thirty. Mr. Froude gives no figure, and calls him "the youth;" by which you may, if you choose, understand eighteen or twenty. His real employment is concealed, and at p. 247, vol. viii., he is called "a wandering musician." Riccio was a man of solid acquirements, able and accomplished. He succeeded to the post formerly held by Raulet—that of secretary for the queen's French correspondence—and was thoroughly versed in the languages as well as in the troubled politics of the day. He was, moreover, devotedly loyal, and inspired Mary with entire confidence in his integrity. Sir Walter Scott (History of Scotland) says that a person like him, "skilled in languages and in business," was essential to the queen, and adds, "No such agent was likely to be found in Scotland, unless she had chosen a Catholic priest, which would have given more offence to her Protestant subjects," etc.

"The queen," says Knox, "usit him for secretary in things that appertainit to her secret affairs in France and elsewhere."

"That he was old, deformed, and strikingly ugly, has been generally accepted by historians," says Burton.

Having, it appears, no access to these three Scotch historians, Mr. Froude is thrown on his own resources and evolves, "He became a favorite of Mary—he was an accomplished musician; he soothed her hours of solitude with love-songs," etc., etc.

In his statement of the circumstances of the plot for the murder, Mr. Froude dwells complacently on every injurious insinuation against Mary Stuart. Referring to a calumnious invention, falsely attributed to Darnley, (vol. viii. p. 248,) he is of opinion that "Darnley's word was not a good one; he was capable of inventing such a story;" that "Mary's treatment of him went, it is likely, no further than coldness or contempt;" but nevertheless he strives to convey the worst impression against her. If Mr. Froude has a "vivid pen," he also has a light one. He glides delicately over the character of the conspiracy to kill Riccio, and manages to veil the real motives. Riccio was assassinated on the ninth of March. Nearly a month previous, on the thirteenth of February, Randolph writes to Leicester, for Elizabeth's eye, (the letter need not be sought for in Froude,)

"I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between father and son, (Lennox and Darnley,) to come to the crown against her (Mary Stuart's) will. I know that if that take effect which is intended, David, (Riccio,) with the consent of the king, shall have his throat cut within these ten days. Many things grievouser and worse than these are brought to my ears;yea, of things intended against her own person, which, because I think better to keep secret than to write to Mr. Secretary, I speak of them but now to your lordship."

And yet all this was but a part of the conspiracy.

Randolph is an authority against whom objection from Mr. Froude is impossible. Nevertheless, he ignores this letter and many others fully confirming it, (vol. viii. p. 254,) thrusts out of sight the real motives, which were political, and industriously works up notorious inventions aimed at Mary Stuart's character.

Looking at it as a mere work of art, and without reference to the facts, the murder scene is admirably described by Mr. Froude. (Vol. viii. p. 257,et seq.) One serious drawback is his insatiable desire for embellishment. For the mere purpose of description none is needed. The subject is fullto overflowing of the finest dramatic material. The result of Mr. Froude's narration is very remarkable. He skilfully manages to centre the reader's sympathy and admiration on the assassin Ruthven, and, with device of phrase and glamour of type, places the sufferer and victim of an infamous brutality in the light of a woman who is merely undergoing some well-merited chastisement. The whole scene as pictured rests on the testimony of the leading assassin, (Ruthven,) from a Londoneditio expurgata; for Chalmers shows (vol. ii. p. 352) that the account given by Ruthven and Morton, dated April 30th, is the revised and corrected copy of what they sent to Cecil on the 2d of April, asking him to make such changes as he saw fit before circulating it in Scotland and England. Their note of April 2d still exists; but Mr. Froude does not allude to it. Thus we have the story from the chief murderer, corrected by Cecil and embellished by Mr. Froude, who, while admitting that "the recollection of a person who had just been concerned in so tremendous a scene was not likely to be very exact," (vol. viii. p. 261,) nevertheless adopts the version of that person in preference to all others. Why not exercise the most rudimentary prudence and plainest judgment by controlling Ruthven's recital by that of another?—for there are several. And if, after all, we must perforce have Ruthven's, why not give it as it is, sparing us such inventions as "turning on Darnley as on a snake," and "could she have trampled him into dust upon the spot, she would have done it." Mr. Froude is all himself here. "Catching sight of the empty scabbard at his side, she asked him where his dagger was. He said he did not know. 'It will be known hereafter; it shall be dear blood to some of you if David's be spilt.'" This is a specimen of able workmanship. According to Keith, Mary's answer was, "It will be known hereafter." According to Ellis, Mary hadpreviouslysaid to Ruthven, "It shall be dear blood to some of you if David's be spilt." Now, let the reader observe that Mr. Froude takes these two phrases, found in two different authors, addressed separately to two different persons, reverses the order in which they are spoken, and puts them into one sentence, which he makes Mary address to Darnley! Do you see why so much industry and ingenuity should be exerted?Because in this form the phrase is a threat of murder; and thus the foundation is laid broad and deep in the reader's mind for the belief that from that moment Mary has a design upon Darnley's life.[56]

One thing Mr. Froude does state correctly. We mean Mary's words when told that Riccio was dead. In her fright, anguish, and horror she ejaculated, "Poor David! good and faithful servant! May God have mercy on your soul!" To those who know the human heart, this involuntary description of the precise place poor David occupied in Mary's esteem is more than answer to Mr. Froude's indecent note at page 261, and his malevolent insinuations on all his pages. Mary struggled to the window to speak to armed citizens who had flocked to her assistance. "Sit down!" cried one of the ruffian lords to her. "If you stir, you shall be cut into collops, and flung over the walls." A prisoner in the hands of these brutal assassins, after the unspeakable outrages to which she had been subjected, Mr. Froude yet hasthe admirable art of placing her before his readers in the light of a wicked woman deprived of her liberty for her own good. When night came, Ruthven called Darnley away, and the queen was left to her rest in the scene of the late tragedy; and, adds Mr. Froude with beautiful equanimity, "The ladies of her court were forbidden to enter, and Mary Stuart was locked alone into her room, amidst the traces of the fray, to seek such repose as she could find." This is true, and in that blood-stained place she passed the night alone.

"They had caged their bird," goes festively on our historian; but they "knew little of the temper which they had undertaken to control." ("Undertaken to control" is here positively delicious!) "Behind that grace of form there lay a nature like a panther's, merciless and beautiful." (Vol. viii. 265.) We have seen a panther's skin admired, but we never before heard that the animal had a beautiful nature. Such are the reflections suggested to Mr. Froude's sympathetic mind by the horrible scenes he has just described.[57]One instinctively trembles for those lambs, the lords, with such a "panther" near them. All this time Mr. Froude takes no further notice of Mary's physical condition than to treat the necessary results, which, almost miraculously, were not fatal, as "trick and policy." (Vol. viii. 266.) The queen was then in the sixth month of her pregnancy, and the possible consequences of the horrible tragedy thus thrust suddenly before her eyes were not unforeseen. The conspirators in their bonds hadexpressly provided for the contingency of her death. When Mary escapes from the band of assassins, Mr. Froude would have been utterly inconsolable but for the fact that her midnight ride gives him (vol. viii. p. 270) the opportunity of executing (tempo agitato) a spirited fantasia on his historic lyre in his description of the gallop of the fleeing cavalcade.[58]It sounds like a faint echo of Bürger'sLenore. Then he gives credit without stint to Mary's iron fortitude and intellectual address. He is entirely too liberal in this regard. Instead of riding "away, away, past Seton," she stopped there for refreshments and the escort of two hundred armed cavaliers under Lord Seton, who was advised of her coming. Then, too, the letter she "wrote with her own hand, fierce, dauntless, and haughty," to Elizabeth, and which Mr. Froude so minutely describes—"The strokes thick, and slightly uneven from excitement, but strong, firm, and without sign of trembling!" This insanity for the picturesque and romantic would wreck a far better historian. The prosaic fact is, that although, as Mr. Froude states, the letter may be seen in the Rolls House,Mary Stuart did not write it. It was written by an amanuensis, the salutation and signature alone being in her hand. This question was the subject of some controversy, during the past year, in Paris and London, and Mr. Wiesener, a distinguished French historical writer, requested Messrs. Joseph Stevenson and A. Crosby, of the Record Office, to examine the letter and give their opinion. Their reply was, "The body of the document is most certainly not in Mary's handwriting." But, after all, there was no occasion for controversy, and still less for Mr. Froude'sblunder. If he had ever read the letter, he would have seen that Mary wrote, "Nous pensions vous écrire cette lettre de notre propre main afin de vous faire mieux comprendre, etc.Mais de fait nous sommes si fatiguée etsi mal à l'aise, tant pour avoir couru vingt milles en cinq heures de nuit etc., quenous ne sommes pas en état de le fairecomme nous l'aurions souhaité." It was her intention to have written this letter with her own hand, but on account of fatigue and illness could not as she would have desired. "Twenty miles in two hours," says Mr. Froude. Twenty miles in five hours, modestly writes Mary Stuart. Fortunately, we have been warned by Mr. Froude against testimony from that "suspected source!"

We close, for the present, with one specimen (not by any means the worst) of Mr. Froude's historical handicraft, which exemplifies his peculiar system of citation. He professes to give the substance of a letter of Mary Stuart published in Labanoff. (Vol. vii. p. 300.) Here is the letter, side by side with Mr. Froude's version of it. We select this out of numerous cases, for the reason that Labanoff is here more readily accessible than other authorities treated in like manner by Mr. Froude.

Mr. Froude's Statement

of the contents of a letter of April 4th, 1566, from Mary Stuart to Queen Elizabeth. (See vol. viii. p. 282.)

"In an autograph letter of passionate gratitude, Mary Stuart placed herself, as it were, under her sister's protection; she told her that, in tracing the history of the late conspiracy, she had found that the lords had intended to imprison her for life; and if England or France came to her assistance, they had meant to kill her. She implored Elizabethto shut her ears to the calumnies which they would spread against her, and with engaging frankness she begged that the past might be forgotten; she had experienced too deeply the ingratitude of those by whom she was surroundedto allow herself to be tempted any more into dangerous enterprises; for her own part, she wasresolved never to give offence to her good sister again; nothing should be wantingto restore the happy relations which had once existed between them; and should she recover safely from her confinement, she hoped that in the summer Elizabeth would make a progress to the north, and that at last she might have an opportunity of thanking her in person for her kindness andforbearance.

"This letter was sent by the hands of a certain Thornton, a confidential agent of Mary Stuart, who had been employed on messages to Rome. 'A very evil and naughty person, whom I pray you not to believe,' was Bedford's credential for him in a letter of the 1st of April to Cecil. He was on his way to Rome again on this present occasion.

"The public in Scotland supposed that he was sent to consult the pope on the possibility of divorcing Darnley, and it is remarkable that the Queen of Scots at the close of her own letter desired Elizabeth to give credit to him on somesecretmatter which he would communicate to her. She perhaps hoped that Elizabeth would now assist her in the dissolution of a marriage which she had been so anxious to prevent."

Translation of the Original Letter.

"Edinburgh, April 4, 1566."

[The opening paragraph of formal compliment acknowledges reception of Elizabeth's "favorable dispatch" by Melville.]

"When Melville arrived, he found me but lately escaped from the hands of the greatest traitors on earth, in the manner in which the bearer will communicate, with a true account of their most secret plot, which was, that even in case the escaped lords and other nobles, aided by you or by any other prince, undertook to rescue me, they would cut me in pieces and throw me over the wall. Judge for yourself the cruel undertakings of subjects against her who can sincerely boast that she never did them harm. Since then, however, our good subjects have counselled with us, ready to offer their lives in support of justice; and we have, therefore, returned to this city to chastise some of its people guilty of this great crime.

"Meantime, we remain in this castle, as our messenger will more fully give you to understand.

"Above all other things, I would especially pray you carefully to see that your agents on the Border comply with your good intentions toward me, and, abiding by our treaty of peace, expel those who have sought my life from their territory, where the leaders in this noted act are as well received as if your intention were the worst possible, (la pire du monde,) and the very reverse of what I know it to be.

"I have also heard that the Count (Earl) of Morton is with you. I beg of you to arrest and send him to me, or at least compel him to return to Scotland, by depriving him of safeguard in England. Doubtless he will not fail to make false statements to excuse himself; statements which you will find neither true nor probable. I ask of you, my good sister, to oblige me in all these matters, with the assurance that I have experienced so much ingratitude from my own people thatIshall never offend by a similar fault. And to fully affirm our original friendship, I would ask of you in any event (quoique Dieu m'envoie) to add the favor of standing as godmother for my child. I moreover hope that, if I should recover by the month of July, and you should make your progress as near to my territory as I am informed you will, to go, if agreeable, and thank you myself, which above all things I desire to do. (Then follow apologies for bad writing, for which, she says, her condition must excuse her, the usual compliments in closing a letter, and wishes for Elizabeth's health and prosperity.)

"Postscript. I beseech your kindness in a matter I have charged the bearer to ask you for me; and furthermore, I will soon write you specially, (et au reste je vous depécherai bientôt exprès,) to thank you and to know your intention, if it pleases you, to send me some other minister, whom I may receive as resident, who would be more desirous of promoting our friendship than Randal[59]has been found to be."

We leave the reader to form his own estimate of this method of writing history. Instead of a letter of "passionate gratitude," written spontaneously, as insinuated, it turns out to be the answer to a dispatch (whether written or verbal, it matters not) transmitted by Elizabeth through Melville. Mary's attitude and language are dignified and independent, and the missive, so far from having any prayer for forbearance in its tone, is plainly one of complaint and warning to Elizabeth, couched, it is true, in terms of politeness. The main subject, "above all other things," is the hospitable reception accorded to Riccio's murderers in England, and Elizabeth is delicately but emphatically reminded of her duty and of the violation of it by her border agents. The passages of Mr. Froude's version marked in italicshave no existencein Mary's letter, and are of his own invention. Mary Stuart says that she has experienced so much ingratitude from her own (people) thatshewould never offend any one by similarly sinning. (J'ai tant eprouvé l'ingratitude des miens que je n'offenserai jamais de semblable péché.) Mr. Froude makes of this that she had experienced too deeply the ingratitude, etc., "toallow herself to be tempted anymore into dangerous enterprises."

What dangerous enterprises? The murder of Riccio? Was she guilty of that too? Was it her midnight escape? Mr. Froude alone has the secret! And then the postscript? Randolphhad not only offended, but deeply injured her, and she wishes Elizabeth to understand that he must not be sent back to Scotland.

It is found "remarkable" that Mary, in her postscript, desires Elizabeth to receive communication of some verbal matter (not secret, as Mr. Froude states) from the messenger. But the same request occurs twice in the body of the letter. Mr. Froude is, of course, accurately informed as to the hidden meaning of the postscript, and settles the matter with what "public opinion supposed," and his usual "perhaps."

This is also an invention of Mr. Froude. He supposes the supposition! Then, too, his "evil and naughty person" is uncalled for; for we know that it was Bedford's business, as it is Mr. Froude's calling, to judge any messenger of Mary Stuart to be "evil and naughty." In all this, the intelligent reader will see that, as at page 261, vol. viii., Mr. Froude lays the foundation of a plan of revenge by Mary against Darnley, so he here strives to fasten upon her the resolution of obtaining a divorce, all going to make cumulative evidence to be used when we come to the Darnley murder. "Deep, sir, deep!"

But there is a more serious aspect to this matter. For three centuries this Mary Stuart question has been a vexed one among historians, and the never-ending theme of acrimonious controversy. What prospect is there of reaching any solution if the subject continues to be treated as we find it in the work before us?

So far from settling any question in dispute, or even solving any of the numerous secondary problems underlying the main issue, Mr. Froude, by his violent partisanship, tortured citation, paltering with the sense while tampering with the text of authorities, attribution of false motives and a scandalous wealth of abusive epithets, greatly grieves the most judicious of those who condemn Mary Stuart, inspires with renewed confidence those who believe that she was a woman more sinned against than sinning, and begets the conviction that the cause must be bad indeed which needs such handling.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.

"Let us show her the marble likeness," suggested Paulus, in an eager whisper, with the air of a child devising mischief.

While they were discussing this topic, a gentle knock was heard at the door, and then a very pretty girl of about fifteen, with an open, sweet countenance, and a remarkably modest, cheerful bearing, presented herself, carrying a sort of tray with various articles for supper arranged thereon.

"May I come in? I am Benigna," said the girl, courtesying.

"Come in, Benigna," said the Greek lady.

"Come in," added Agatha, in Latin,but by no means with so good an accent as her mother's. "You seem like your name; you seem to be Benigna."

The girl looked at the beautiful child with a sweet, grateful smile, and immediately proceeded to prepare a table and three covers for supper.

"Do you know Greek?"[60]asked Aglais.

"No, lady," replied the daughter of the house. "My father is quite a scholar; he was one of the secretary slaves in the great house before he got his freedom, and my mother has learnt much from him; but I have been brought up to help mother in the inn, and never had time to learn high things."

Agatha clapped her hands, and exclaimed,

"Then I'll talk my bad Latin to Benigna, and she shall make it good."

The girl paused in her operations at the table, and said,

"I thought Latin came naturally to one, like the rain, and that it was Greek which had to be worked out, and made, just as wine is."

The landlady, carrying various articles, entered as her daughter uttered this valuable observation, and she joined heartily in the laugh with which it was greeted. Benigna gazed round for a moment in amazement, and then resumed her work, laughing through sympathy, but very red from the forehead to the dimples round her pretty mouth.

The supper-table was soon ready.

Paulus, at whom the hostess had frequently looked wistfully, now remarked that they all felt much gratitude for the kindness they were receiving, and never could forget it. Crispina, who was going out at the moment, did not reply, but lingered with her hand upon the door; the other hand she passed once across her eyes.

Then the Greek lady observed,

"Good hostess, these are the apartments you intended for some barbarian queen, I believe?"

"Yes, my lady; for Queen Berenice, daughter-in-law of King Herod the Idumæan, called Herod the Great, with her son Herod Agrippa, a wild youth, I understand, about eighteen years old, and her daughter Herodias."

"I heard the tribune quæstor, who commands the prætorians, plead for us with your husband," continued Aglais; "and I suppose that the quæstor's generous eloquence is the cause of our being received into your house at all. But this does not account for your extraordinary kindness to us. We expected to be barely tolerated as inconvenient and unwelcome guests, who kept better customers away."

"Inconvenient and unwelcome!" said Crispina, who seemed ready to cry, as, looking around the little group, her glance rested again upon Paulus.

"Whereas," resumed Aglais, "you treat my dear children as if you were their mother. Why are we so fortunate as to find these feelings in a stranger?"

The hostess paused a moment. "Honored lady," said she, "the reason is, that I once was the nurse of a youth whom I loved as if he were my own child; and it seemed to me as if I saw my brave, beautiful, affectionate nursling again when I saw your son; but so long a time had passed, I nearly fell with fright and astonishment."

Agatha went to the bust of Tiberius, lifted it, and, pointing to the marble image, said in a low, tender voice,

"You nursed him?"

A little cry of dismay escaped the lips of our hostess.

"No one ever thought of looking beneath," said she. "My daughter and I arrange and dust the room. I must remove my poor boy's image. He is indeed forgotten by most people now; but it might harm us, and alas! alas! could not help him, if this silent face, that never smiles at me, never talks to me any more, were to be discovered. Do not speak of this to any body, I beg of you, good lady, and my pretty one. You will not?" added she, smiling, but with tears in her eyes as she looked at Paulus. "I feel as though I had reared you."

They said they would take care not to allude to the subject at all, except among themselves, and then Aglais remarked,

"You speak in sorrow of the youth whom you nursed. Is he then dead?"

"Eheu!lady, he is dead nearly twenty years; but he was just about your son's age when they put him to death."

"Put him to death? Why was he put to death, and by whom?" asked Aglais.

"Hush! Mæcenas and the emperor ordered it to be done. Oh! do take care. The whole world swarms with spies, and you may be sure an inn is not free from them. Things have been more quiet of late years. When I was young, I felt as if my head was but glued to my shoulders, and would fall off every day. As for Crispus, did I not make him cautious how he spake?"

"But your foster-son?"

"Ah poor boy! Poor young knight! He was mad about the ancient Roman liberties; a great student, always reading Tully."

"Was that his crime?" demanded Aglais.

The hostess wiped her eyes with the sleeve of herstola manicata, and said, in a tone little above a whisper, looking round timidly, and closing the door fast,

"Why, Augustus came suddenly one day into atriclinium, where he caught a nephew of his trying to hide under a cushion some book which he had been reading. Augustus took the book, and found that it was one of Tully's. The nephew thought he was lost, remembering that it was Augustus who had given up Cicero to Mark Antony to be murdered. There the emperor stood, fastened to the page, and continued reading and reading till at last he heaved a great breath, and, rolling up the book on its roller, laid it softly down, and said, 'A great mind, a very great mind, my nephew;' and so he left the room."

"Then it was not your foster-son's admiration of Cicero that caused his death?"

"My foster-son was not Augustus's nephew, you see; buteheu!how different a case!—the nephew of a former rival of Augustus. Nor used the emperor's nephew to talk as my poor child would talk. My foster-son used to say that for Augustus to have given up Tully, his friend and benefactor, to be murdered by Mark Antony, in order that he, Augustus, might be allowed to murder somebody else, and then to discover that neither he nor the human race could enjoy justice, nor see peace, nor have safety, till this very same Antony should be himself destroyed, was not a pretty tale. Cicero had sided against, and had resisted Julius Cæsar; yet Julius had given back his life to a man of whom Rome and the civilized world were proud. The same Tully had sidedwith, not against, Augustus, and had been the making of him; yet the life which a noble enemy had spared and left shining like a star, abase friend stole, and suffered to be quenched; and this for the sake of a monster who, for the sake of mankind, had to be very soon himself destroyed. This was not a nice tale, my poor Paulus used to say."

"Nor was it; but your Paulus?" cried Aglais. The travellers all held their breath in surprise and suspense.

"Yes."

"What! the youth whom that bust represents, and whom Augustus put to death, was called Paulus?"

"Yes. They said he had engaged in some conspiracy, the foolish dear! But now, lady, I have been led, bit by bit, into many disclosures, and I beseech you—"

"Fear not," interrupted Aglais; "I cannot but cherish a fellow-feeling with you; for, although I have something to ask of the emperor, it is justice only. I, too, look back to experiences which are akin to yours. My son yonder, whom the marble image of your foster-son so strikingly resembles, bears the same name, Paulus; and the name of his father was that which headed the first list of those who, the Triumvirate agreed, should die."

"Permit me, now, to ask once more who you are, lady?" said Crispina. "I know well the names upon that list."

"My husband," replied the Greek widow, "was brother of the triumvir Lepidus."

"The triumvir was our master," answered the landlady; "and alas! it is too true that he, the triumvir, was timid and weak, and his son, about whose image you have asked me, knew not, poor youth, when he so bitterly blamed Augustus for sacrificing Tully to Mark Antony, that his own father had given up a brother—that brother whom you married—in the same terrible days, and just in the same kind of way."

"Whose bust, then, do you say is this which is so like my son?" asked Aglais.

"The bust of your son's first cousin, lady. My foster-son's father was your husband's brother."

"No wonder," cried Agatha, "that my brother should be like his own first cousin!"

"No," said Aglais; "but it is as surprising as it is fortunate that we should have come to this house, and have fallen among kind persons disposed to be friends, like our hostess, her good husband, and little Benigna yonder."

"There is nothing which my husband and I would not do," said Crispina, "for the welfare of all belonging to the great Æmilian family, in whose service we both were born and spent our childhood; the family which gave us our freedom in youth, and our launch in life as a married couple. As for me, you know now how I must feel when I look upon the face of your son."

A pause ensued, and then Aglais said,

"Your former master, the triumvir, wrote to my husband asking forgiveness for having consented to let his name appear in the list of the proscribed, and explaining how he got it erased. Therefore, let not that subject trouble you."

"I happen, on my side, to know for a fact," answered the hostess, "that the one circumstance to which you refer has been the great remorse of the triumvir's life. The old man still mumbles and maunders, complaining that he never received a reply to that letter. He would die happy if he could but see you, and learn that all had been forgiven."

Before Aglais had time to make any answer, the landlord appeared, carrying a smallcadus, or cask, marked in large black letters—

L. CARNIFICIOS. POMPEIOCOS.

Benigna had previously set upon a separatemensa, or table, according to custom, fruits, and fictile or earthen cups.

"I thought so!" cried good Crispus. "Women (excuse me, lady, I mean my wife and daughter) will jabber and cackle even when ladies may be tired, and, as I sincerely hope, hungry. Do, Crispina, let me see the ladies and this young knight enjoy their little supper. This Alban wine, my lady, is nearly fifty years old, I do assure you; look at the consul's name on the cask. Benigna, young as she is, might drink tencyathiof it without hurt. By the by, I have forgotten the measure. Run, Benigna, and fetch acyathus(a ladle-cup) to help out the wine."

"Jabber and cackle!" said the hostess. "Crispus, this lady is the widow, and these are the son and daughter of Paulus Æmilius Lepidus."

The landlord, in the full career of his own jabber, was stricken mute for a moment. He gazed at each of our three travellers in turn, looking very fixedly at Paulus. At last he said,

"This, then, accounts for the wonderful likeness. My lady, I will never take one brass coin from you or yours; not anas, so help me! You must command in this house. Do not think otherwise."

And, apparently to prevent Aglais from answering him, he drew his wife hastily out of the room, and closed the door.

Benigna was left behind, and, with winning smiles and a flutter of attentions, the young girl now placed the chairs, and began to cackle, as Crispus would have expressed himself, and to entreat the wanderers to take that refreshment of which they stood so much in need. They all had the delicate and graceful tact to feel that compliance with the kindness which they had so providentially found was the only way to return it which they at present possessed.

It is historical to add that appetite gave the same advice. Their hunger was as keen as their tact. During supper the mother and son spoke little; but Agatha, both during the repast and for some time afterward, kept up a brisk conversation with Benigna, for whom the child had taken an inexpressible liking, and from whom she drew, with unconscious adroitness, the fact that she was engaged to be married. That sudden affection of sympathy which knit the soul of David to that of Jonathan seemed to have bound these two together. The landlady's considerate daughter at length advised Agatha to defer further communications until she should have a good night's rest. Paulus seconded the recommendation, and left his mother and sister with their Greek slave Melena and with Benigna, and retired to his own bedroom. This chamber overlooked theimpluvium, or inner court, whence the incessant plash of the fountain was heard soothingly through his lattice-window, the horn slide of which he left open. The bedroom of the ladies, on the other hand, overlooked the garden and bee-hives, to which Crispina had alluded. The sitting apartments, opening into each other, in one of which they had supped, stood between; all these rooms being situated in the projecting west wing, which they entirely filled. Thus closed the day which had carried to their destination the travellers from Thrace.

Next morning when they met at thejentaculum, or breakfast, there wasa marvellous improvement in Agatha's looks. She had been the earliest out of bed; had seen from her window, under a brilliant sunshine, the beautiful landscape unroll itself in the various forms which the landlady had truly though inadequately described; and she then had run down into the garden.

In due time—that is, very soon afterward—she had been chased by the bees, had fled, screaming and laughing, with the hood of herriciniumdrawn completely over the head by way of helmet against the terrible darts of her indignant pursuers, and had been received in the arms of Benigna, who had heard the cry of distress and had flown to the rescue, brandishing a long, reedy brush, like the mosquito brushes of modern times. Rallying in a bower of trellis-work covered with ivy, whence a wooden staircase led up to the first floor of the house, by way of a landing or platform, over which rose another bower clad in the same ivy mantle—facing round, I say, upon her enemy at the foot of this staircase, she had soon ventured once more into the garden with Benigna, and the two girls, jabbering and cackling much, had gathered a large nosegay of autumnal flowers. With this booty, which Benigna had made so big that Agatha could hardly hold it in her small and elegant hands, the latter damsel had returned to the bower, had seated herself upon a bench, and had begun to sort the flowers in the relative positions which best showed their tints. Here she relied upon gradation, there upon contrast. Her delicate Greek taste in the performance of this task drew exclamations of delight from Benigna.

"There!" the innkeeper's daughter would cry; "how pretty! That is the way! That so, and then that, and that! They look quite different now! Exactly! I never imagined it!"

When Agatha had finished the arrangement to her own satisfaction, an exploit which was nimbly achieved, "Now, Benigna," said she, with her pretty foreign accent, "sit down here; just do, and tell me all about every thing."

Benigna stared, and Agatha proceeded,

"So you are engaged to become the wife of a very good and handsome youth, who in himself is every thing that can be admired, except that, poor young man! he is not very courageous, I understood you to say. Now, that is not his fault, I suppose. How can he help feeling afraid if he does feel afraid?"

At this moment the voice of Crispina was heard calling her daughter to help in preparing the breakfast, and Benigna, whom Agatha's last words had thrown into some confusion, as the same topic had done the previous evening, made an excuse and ran away, with the light of roses vivid in her cheeks.

Agatha remained, and looked out upon the garden, and beyond it upon the sweet country, with its varied beauty. She remained listening peacefully and dreamingly to the hum of bees, the twittering of birds, the voices and footsteps in the inn, and inhaling the perfumes of the nosegay which she had arranged, and the cool freshness of that pleasant morning hour, when the sun behind her and behind the house was throwing the shadows of buildings, sheds, trees, and cattle in long lines toward the Tyrrhenian Sea. While thus calmly resting, admiring, and musing, a lady in a dark robe of poil, (gausapa,) with a very pallid face and large black eyes, stood suddenly in the doorway of the bower, and blocked out the lovely prospect. The stranger smiled, and, holding out a bunch of flowers, said,

"My pretty young lady, I see that the offering I have been culling foryou has lost its value. You are rich already. May I sit down in this pleasant shady place a moment to rest?"

"Yes, you may, certainly," said Agatha.

"I suppose," resumed the stranger, "that you belong to this house, my little friend? I am a stranger, and merely lodging—"

"We are lodging, too, and strangers," answered Agatha.

"From your accent," continued the other, "I judge you to be Greek."

"Mother is," replied Agatha; "but brother calls himself a Roman knight, and even noble."

"I knew it!" cried the lady; "you have it written in your countenance. I, too, am a noble lady; my name is Plancina. Have you ever seen Rome?"

"Never."

"Ah! how you will be enchanted. You must come to see me. I have a house in Rome; such a pretty house, full of such curious things! Ah! when you see Rome, you will hold your breath with wonder and delight. I will make you so happy when you come to see me in my pretty house."

"You are a very kind, good lady, I should think," quoth Agatha, looking up from her flowers, and gazing long at the pallid face and the large black eyes; "and if we go to Rome, I and my mother will visit you, perhaps."

"My house is among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said the lady. "Remember two things—Viminal Hill, with its beeches and its willows, andthe Calpurnian House, where the Piso family have lived for generations. My husband, Piso, has had great losses at dice. I am rich enough to spend a fortune every year for half a century, and we have still at our house all the pleasures that can be thought of. What pains I will take to amuse you! You cannot conceive the splendors, dresses, games, sports, shows, and beauties of Rome; the theatres, the circus, the combats, the great wild beasts of all sorts from all countries, the dances—"

As she pronounced the word "dances," a youthful male voice was heard at a little distance, saying, "While they change horses here, we will stretch our limbs by a stroll in the garden behind the inn. Make haste, worthy innkeeper; order your servants to be brisk."

And almost at the same moment a brilliantly beautiful, dark, eastern-looking girl, in a Syrian costume, appeared at the entrance of the bower. Behind her came sauntering the youth whose voice had been heard. He was of about Paulus's age, had an olive complexion, was sumptuously dressed, and exhibited a strong family likeness in face to the girl. Last followed a woman in middle life, appareled in costly robes, suited to travel, haughty, languid, and scornful of mien.

Plancina and Agatha looked up and surveyed the new-comers. The brilliant damsel remained at the entrance of the bower examining its occupants with a hardy, unabashed glance; whereupon Plancina, after a moment's pause, occasioned by the interruption, resumed and concluded her sentence thus,

"No, you can form no idea of the gayeties of Rome; the games, the shows, the theatres, the glories, the pleasures, the jests, thedances."

"But all your good dances come from foreign lands—from the east, indeed," interrupted the damsel, nodding her head repeatedly and sneeringly; "you must admit that."

"Notall our goodalone," answered Plancina sternly, noticing that the woman in middle life smiled approvingly at the girl who had obtruded the remark; "notall our goodalone, butall. The office of the outside world is to try and amuse Rome."

"And what is Rome's office?" asked the damsel.

"To be amused by them, if she can," answered the Roman.

"Come away, Herodias," said the haughty, languid, and scornful-looking woman; and the two strolled down the middle walk of the garden. The youth who had come with them lingered a moment or two behind, standing in the middle of the gravel-walk and gazing straight into the bower, while he flirted a sort of horse-whip around the heads of one or two tall flowers which were growing outside along the border of the walk.

Plancina looked steadily at him, and he at her. The lad withdrew after a few moments, without a change of feature.

"What starers!" muttered Agatha.

"They have a talent for it, indeed," said Plancina. "A hardy family, putting one thing with another. I think I know who they are. The mother, if she were the mother, called the daughter, if she were the daughter, Herodias. My husband thinks of going to Syria, and indeed Tiberius has offered him the procuratorship of Judea; but he would not condescend to go in any smaller capacity than as prefect of Syria. An acquaintance of ours,young Pontius Pilate, wants to get the procuratorship. The minor office would be a great thing forhim. But my husband, Piso of the Calpurnians, cannot stoop tothat. I may meet yonder family again."

"Those people are looking back," observed Agatha, who had paid very little attention to her companion's speech.

Plancina rose, and, going to the entrance of the bower, honored the strangers with a steady glance. The scornful-looking foreign woman in sumptuous apparel met it for a moment, and then turned away. Her son and daughter turned away at the same time.

"Ah! they are gone," murmured Agatha; "they do not like you to gaze so at them."

"It is but a Roman," returned Plancina, "looking at barbarians. They always shrink in that curious manner. And why this Greek lunacy?" muttered she; "and why this Attic mania?"

"Attic what?" asked the half-Greek girl.

"Nothing, my dear," replied Plancina; "only you are not Greek, you know; your father's race and the name you bear settle that question; your very mother is now, and has long since become, a Roman citizen; you must always prefer Rome to Greece; never forget that rule, or you and yours will perish."

Agatha opened wide the ingenuous young eyes, and seemed to be most seriously alarmed.

Plancina smoothed her pale brows, which had been frowning; and continued with a stern smile,

"I am only giving you a friend's warning. Your mother and brother have a suit to urge at court. There exists a pestilent Greek faction which are all doomed to destruction; tell your mother that you must all beware of being mixed up with them, and you will escape their perdition. A Greek, like your mother, with something to ask, is peculiarly liable to make the mistake of seeking Greek friends. If she do, she is utterly lost, however powerful may seem the prince who patronizes the accursed cabal."

Agatha shrank and trembled, murmuring like an echo Plancina's last adjective—exitiabilis.

"Do not stare at me so, my little dear," continued Plancina. "There is the Prince Germanicus. Only for him—every body knows it, and every body says it; the thing is no secret—Piso,my husband, would be now prefect of Syria; and like Crispus Sallust, when I was a little girl, would have recovered ten times the fortune out of which he has been cheated at dice. I am called a rash, violent, and an untamable woman. The moment, however, that any body gives you any information about court parties and political factions, every thing I am saying will be mentioned. I do not hide my disgust. Foreign barbarians of all sorts swarm; they creep through postern doors; they privately influence all the destinies of that world of which Romans have the name publicly of being masters. We are trodden under the feet of Greeks, Jews, and Chaldeans; the first beat us by genius, by eloquence, and artistic skill, by general intellectual force and subtlety; the second by superstition-inspired obstinacy, by incredible and unspeakable importunity, by steadfastness in sordid servility, by sorcery, divination, necromancy, and delusion; not all delusion, I grant you; for I myself have seen the demons of Thrasyllus, the Babylonish Greek."

"What!" cried Agatha, "seen demons? And what does a Babylonish Greek mean?"

"A Greek initiated in the Babylonish mysteries."

"And who is Thrasyllus?"

"A magician."

"What is that?"

"A man who calls demons and spirits of the air, as you would call your pet birds, and they come to him."

"May the unknown God love me!" cried Agatha, shuddering. "What are the demons like?"

"Not like our sculptures, believe me," answered Plancina. "I dare not tell you; I have seen what no words can say."

She paused, shrugged her shoulders, and then added,

"Some forms were like the human, with red fire in the veins instead of blood, and white fire in the bones instead of marrow; eyes they possessed that had no comfort in them. They had the air of being utterly without interest in any thing, only that their eyes were filled with fear; yet it seemed to me with knowledge, too: unspeakable fear, immense knowledge; wells and pools they appeared, full of fear and knowledge. When they glanced upon you, there were pale rays of hatred strangely combined with an expression of indifference, fear, knowledge, and hatred. If you looked at the eyes, when they looked not at you, you saw nothing but an expression of fear and knowledge; but when they did look at you, you saw fear, knowledge, and hatred too. All these faces mocked without smiling, and scoffed without enjoyment. Something, I thought, was dripping down the wan cheeks, and there was a look of fixed surprise long ago, of long-past astonishment—the trace left, and the feeling gone. The emotion of boundless amazement had once been there; the signs of it were left all over the countenance, but, if I may so speak, petrified—an immedicable scar, an ineffaceable vestige. The character of the countenance was that of a dead astonishment—the astonishment was dead; it was no longer an active sentiment. It had been some boundless wonder; the greatest which that creature had ever experienced, and the event which had caused it had apparently been the most serious which that being had ever known."

"What a truly tremendous description!" exclaimed Agatha.

The other made no reply; and before any further conversation could occur between them, a young man, in the dark-brown habiliments of a slave, entered the garden from the inn, and after a hasty glance in variousdirections, approached the bower. His features were very good; he was well made, of a pleasing address, and had a look of uncommon intelligence. He possessed, in a small degree, and a humble way, that undefinable air of elegance which mental culture sheds over the countenance; but with this advantage he betrayed certain symptoms of awkwardness and timidity. Standing at a little distance from the door of the arbor, he made a low bow to Plancina, and said he was the bearer of some commands.

"Commands from whom?" she demanded.

He answered, bowing low again, by merely stating that his name was Claudius.

Plancina instantly rose, and took leave of Agatha, enjoining her not to forget the warnings and counsels she had given. Agatha then saw her hastily reënter the hotel, followed by the handsome slave. Thereupon, buoyantly recovering her spirits, which the presence and the words of this woman had depressed, she ascended the staircase to the landing overhead, where she was joined by her mother from the room within.

Agatha immediately told Aglais every thing which had passed between her and Plancina.

"I don't think, my dear child, we shall be likely to trouble her in her nice house among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said Aglais; and as Paulus now came out upon the landing, a second edition of the narrative was produced for his information.

"Germanicus," said he, "is more like the last of the Romans than in any sense reprehensible or degenerate in his tastes. His love for Greece and his admiration for Athens are an honor to his understanding. They are nothing else. This has nothing to do with preferring barbarians and barbarous influences. My education,edepol!has to be completed; but I am educated enough to know that Rome goes for schooling to Greece as much as ever she did. Was not Julius Cæsar himself what they call aGræculus? I rather think he was even deeper than Germanicus in Greek lore; but, therefore, all the more fitted for Roman command. The Romans continued to be barbarians long after the Greeks had become the teachers of the world; and were it not for Greece, they would be barbarians still. As for warning us not to dare to make friends for ourselves of this person or that, or of any who appreciate intellect—for this means to appreciate Greeks—it is like warning us to remain friendless, in order that we may the more easily be crushed. It is the wolf's advice to the sheep, to send away her dogs; but I am more dog than that myself. This pale, beetle-browed lady ought to have enjoined those to be timid who know how. Dare do this! Dare do that! For my part, I am not afraid to do any thing that I think right."

His mother pressed Paulus's hand affectionately, and his sister's high spirit, which had cowered under the dreadful conversation of Plancina, shone in her eyes as she smiled at him.

Meanwhile, in the large room within, breakfast had been prepared for the wanderers on a table drawn opposite to and near the open folding-doors of the arbor where they were conversing; and the landlady now summoned them to partake of that repast.

After breakfast, at which Crispina herself waited on them, Agatha asked where Benigna was.

The landlady smiled, and stated that a friend of her daughter's had called, and was doubtless detainingher, but she would go at once and bring the girl.

"On no account," interposed Aglais; "Benigna, I dare say, will unfold to my daughter all about it by and by. Unless you have some pressing business to take you immediately away, will you kindly inform us of the news, if there be any, and let us sit in the arbor while you tell us?"

Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the garden, and Crispina told them the news.

In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit to Formiæ was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas he was to have entered Formiæ that very morning. Crispina added, that it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet.

In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son, Herod Agrippa, and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward.

"Mother," said Agatha, "those must have been the persons who, an hour ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias."

"The same," continued the landlady. "Finding that they cannot be accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with all their train to Formiæ, where—royal though they be—they will be nobody's guests; and as there is not a place of public entertainment in that town, and the weather is delightful, he says they will pitch two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge of the green space outside of Formiæ, where the games are to be held."

"Only fancy!" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands.

Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping details, that the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would be stupendous. Formiæ, we may mention, was frequently calledMamurrarum, orurbs mamurrana, from the colonel or chiliarch Mamurra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the cause of Julius Cæsar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars; had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had amassed enormous wealth.

He had long since returned to his native Formiæ, where he had built a superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius, the founder of the Pantheon, had long before been among those by whom, in compliance with the often-announced wish of Augustus, not peculiarly addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen, Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself said, (for himself,) "They had found it of bricks, and were leaving it of marble."

"I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said Aglais.

"So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. "Well, he has just knocked up a circus in the fields adjoining Formiæ, and is preparing to exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in honor of the emperor's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the Mamurran palace. Tiberius Cæsar, who is also to be the knight's guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainmentsof his own there, and Germanicus Cæsar, before marching north to fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy, is to review at Formiæ the troops destined for that expedition, as well as the great bulk of the prætorian guards under Sejanus. The guards are uncertain what portion of them the Cæsar may take with him northward."

"Mother, we shall see the shows, we shall see the shows!" cried Agatha.

"Oh! and I am so slow. There is another ingredient yet in my wallet of tidings," exclaimed Crispina; "and only think of my almost forgetting to remember it."

"Remember not to forget it," said the Greek girl, holding up her finger with an admonishing and censorious look at the landlady. "What is this particular which you have, after all, not forgotten to remember?"

"My charming little lady, it is a particular which concerns the land of your mother, and the people of Greece; for seldom, say they, has that land or people sent to Rome any body like him."

"You accused yourself of being slow; but now you gallop. Like whom?"

"Like this noble young Athenian."

"Galloping still faster," rejoined Agatha.

"What noble young Athenian?"

"This Athenian, gifted as his countryman Alcibiades, eloquent as our own Tully, acute and profound as Aristotle, honorable as Fabricius, truthful as Regulus, and O ladies! with all these other excellencies, beautiful as a poem, a picture, a statue, or a dream!"

"There's a description," quoth Agatha, laughing.

"More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus.

"Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, "to leave us in no doubt at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius; it must beDion."

"That is the very name!" exclaimed the hostess.

"My mother knows him," said Paulus. "My sister and I have often heard of him; so have thousands; but we have not seen him. It is he who carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left bank of the Ilissus."

"The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day we embarked at the Piræus somebody showed it to us, just opposite Diana Agrotera, which is on the left bank?"

"It is all the same," said Paulus.

"Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said Agatha. "That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were the same."

"All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resumed the hostess, "make toilets against him."

"Toils, you mean," said Paulus.

"Yes, toils," continued the hostess. "They are intended as toils for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls; theornatriusand they are toilers for the fair dames themselves."

"It is all the same," again quoth Paulus.

"And how do these toilets prosper against Dionysius the Athenian?"

"They tell me he is not aware of the admiration he excites—is totally indifferent to it."

"Base, miserable youth!" cried Paulus, laughing. "These Roman dames and damsels ought to punish him."

"You mean by letting him alone?" asked the landlady.

"No; that would kill him," returned Paulus with a sneer, "being what he is."

"Then how punish him?" asked she.

"By pursuing him with their blandishments," answered Paulus; "that is,if they can muster sufficient ferocity. But I fear the women are too kind here in Italy. I am told that even in the midst of the most furious passions, and while the deadliest agonies are felt by others around them, their natural sweetness is so invincible that they smile and send soft glances to and fro; they look more bewitching at misery (such is their goodness) than when they see no suffering at all. Yes, indeed! and as the gladiators fight, they have a lovely smile for each gash; and when the gladiator dies, their eyes glisten enchantingly. We have not these entertainments in Greece, and the Greek Dion must soon feel the superiority of the Roman to the Greek woman. Pity is a beautiful quality in a woman; and the Greek ladies do not seek the same frequent opportunities of exercising it as the Italian ladies possess, and,eheu!enjoy."

"Is Paulus bitter?" asked Aglais. "Is Paulus witty?"

"Talking of wit, my lady," pursued the hostess, "none but our dear old Plautus could have matched this young Athenian, as Antistius Labio, the great author of five hundred volumes, has found to his cost."

"Labio! Why, that must be the son of one of those who murdered Cæsar," exclaimed Paulus. "My father met his father foot to foot at the battle of Philippi; but he escaped, and slew himself when Brutus did so."

"That was indeed this man's father," said Crispina. "The son is a very clever man, and a most successful practitioner in the law courts. Wishing to mortify Dionysius, he said in his presence, at a review of the troops at Formiæ yesterday, that he was grateful to the gods he had not been born at Athens, and was no Greek—not he!

"'The Athenians also entertain,' replied Dionysius, 'the idea which you have just expressed.'

"'What idea?' asked Antistius Labio.

"'That their gods watch over them,' replied Dionysius. Ah my lady! you should have heard the laughter at Labio; the very centurions turned away to conceal their grins. Some one high at court then took the Athenian's arm on one side, and Titus Livius's on the other, and walked off with them. Labio did not say a word."

"Pray can you tell us, good Crispina, whether Germanicus Cæsar is to be a guest of the knight Mamurra?" asked Paulus.

The landlady said she believed he would be for a day or two, and that she thought it was even he who had taken Dion's and Livy's arm, and walked with them apart.

"It is some time," said Aglais, "since Catullus indited those epigrammatic verses against the hospitable and opulent knight. This Mamurra must be very old."

"Yet, my lady," replied Crispina, "he has a ruddy face, a clear complexion, and downright black eyebrows."

"There is a wash calledlixirium," said Aglais with a meaning smile.

"Ah! but," cried Crispina, laughing with no less knowing a look, "that makes the hair yellow; and the brows of the knight are as black as the jet ornaments in your daughter's hair."

"You can tell us, no doubt," said Paulus, "who those ladies must be that came with Tiberius Cæsar yesterday from that splendid mansion on the Liris. They were in beautiful litters; one of sculptured bronze, the other of ivory, embossed with gold reliefs."

"I know who they are, of course,"said the landlady; "they are half-sisters, the daughters of the late renowned warrior and statesman, the builder of the Pantheon, Agrippa Vipsanius, but by different mothers. One of them was the wife of Tiberius Cæsar."

"Was!" exclaimed Paulus; "why, she's not a ghost?"

"She is, nevertheless; her husband has another wife," said the landlady; adding, in a low voice, "a precious one, too; the emperor has required him to marry the august Julia."

"The august!" murmured Aglais contemptuously, with a shrug of the shoulders; "getting old, too."

"I am sure," resumed the landlady, "no one can describe the relationships of that family. Agrippa Vipsanius, you must know, married three times. His second wife was Marcella, daughter of Augustus's sister, Octavia; and this Marcella became the mother of the elder of the two ladies whom you saw. Well, while this Marcella was still living, but after she had had a daughter called Vipsania, Augustus made Agrippa put her away to marry, mind you, this very same august Julia, Augustus's own daughter, and therefore Marcella's first cousin. This Julia, who had just become a widow, having lost her first husband Marcellus, is the mother of the other lady whom you saw, who is called Julia Agrippina, and who thus came into the world the second cousin of her own half-sister. Well, Agrippa, the father of both girls, leaving the august Julia a widow for the second time, Tiberius Cæsar marries Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania, and has a son by her, called Drusus; and now, while Vipsania is still living, Augustus makes Tiberius put her away to marry the aforesaid august Julia, the mother of the younger daughter, Julia Agrippina, who is Tiberius's first and likewise second cousin."

"I can hardly follow you in the labyrinth," said Aglais.

"No one can, my lady, except those who make a study of it," said the landlady, laughing; "but it's all true. Julia, Augustus's daughter, is the wife of the father of both these girls, first cousin to the eldest of them, mother and cousin-in-law of the younger, and has now also been made wife to the husband of the elder, her own first cousin, and become the sister-in-law of her own daughter and cousin-in-law to the younger."

"Medius fidius!" cried Paulus, staring stupidly, "what a tremendous twisted knot! Julia's daughter, half-sister, and second cousin is put away, that the half-sister's husband may marry the half-sister's stepmother and second cousin, or something like that."

"Or something like that," continued Crispina; "but there is no end to it. Tiberius Cæsar is now father-in-law and brother-in-law to one woman, and the husband and stepfather-in-law to another, while the mother of the younger half-sister becomes the sister-in-law of her own daughter."

At this moment Agatha, who was opposite the outer door of the embowered landing, leading down by a flight of stairs into the garden, through the other arbor before mentioned, suddenly exclaimed, "There's Benigna walking in the garden with a man!"

They all looked, and saw Benigna and a young man, wearing a brown tunic and slippers, in a distant alley of fig-trees, talking earnestly as they strolled together. Crispina smiled and said, "I must really tell you that my Benigna's betrothed lover came here unexpectedly at daybreak. He has obtained a week's holiday, and will spend it, he vows, in the inn. We have had to use some skill, I promise you, in finding room for him. He is to sleep in a big trunk with the lid off, stowed away in the angle of acorridor behind a curtain. He is a very good and well-instructed youth, knows Greek, and is severely worked as one of the secretaries of Tiberius Cæsar, whose slave he is, as I think Benigna has mentioned to my little Lady Agatha yonder."

"When is the marriage of dear Benigna to take place?" asked Agatha.

"Of course the poor young man," replied Crispina, "cannot marry until he gets his freedom. Whenever Tiberius Cæsar allows him to shave his head, and put on thepileus, (cap of liberty,) we shall have a merry wedding."

"What sort of master is Tiberius Cæsar?" asked Paulus.

The landlady said she was thankful she did not personally know him; but she had never heard any complaint of him made by Claudius, her future son-in-law.

"Your future son-in-law, Claudius!" exclaimed Agatha in amazement. "Then it was your future son-in-law who had something to say to that Dame Plancina, with the pale face and black eyebrows?"

"Not that I know of, my little lady," returned the hostess.

"Ah! but he had, though," persisted Agatha. "He came to the arbor door, and distinctly stated, with a low bow, that he had commands for that lady; and then she said from whom; and he said, my name is Claudius; that is what he said; and then she jumped up in a remarkable fluster and went into the house, and he followed her. But then why she should jump up in a fluster, because a slave said his name was Claudius, I can't imagine," concluded Agatha, pondering.

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