th, except as to finding the hoards of
coins and jewels, to the smallest detail. I also told her of our
stewardship and of our having killed and eaten a brace of ewes and eight
goats. She approved.

I asked her about the children's tale of the slaves running away.

She sighed.

"I should have trusted any one of the seven," she said. "I believed that
any one of them would have been faithful. I suppose almost all slaves are
alike, after all. Hermes died about midsummer. He was the oldest of them
and the best. I suppose that, in past winters, he had kept the others to
their duty. But then, I was never ill before. Without Hermes to lead them,
without me to order them, I suppose what they did was natural."

I told her of the great cold and abundant snow of the winter. She
questioned me and said:

"Evidently you have had more cold and snow in one winter than I have had
in ten."

On the third day after her revival she was able to get out of bed and,
leaning heavily on me, to reach the door of the hut. There she sat basking
in the sun, Secunda on one side of her, Prima on the other, Hylactor at
her feet.

Hylactor had proved himself a perfect watchdog that winter. We had never
allowed him to sleep in the hut, as he would have done if permitted, and
as he tried to do at first. Agathemer had fashioned him a tiny shelter and
into it he crawled nightly. Out of it, also, he dashed, if any sound or
scent roused him. Tracks of wolves were frequent in the snow out in the
forest, and not a few approached our clearing. But we lost not one sheep
or goat to any wolf. Hylactor frightened off most and killed three, a
medium-sized female and two full-grown young males, at the acme of their
fighting powers. We rated Hylactor a paragon among dogs.

The warm weather held on, though unseasonable so early in the year. Nona
recovered so rapidly that she was able to visit each of the outbuildings.
Just when she was well enough to walk alone and firmly came a sharp spell
of cold, as unseasonable as had been the heat. It began about noon, one
clear day, with a high wind. By sunset everything was frozen.

Nona said:

"You two have had more than your share of sleeping on the earth floor by
the fire. My bed will hold me and my girls, for a few nights. You two take
their bed. It will be cold on the floor tonight."

That night, therefore, Agathemer and I enjoyed a sound night's sleep in a
deep, soft bed. It was our first night in a Gallic bed,