you deserve recreation and refreshment. Come
in. We don't know you two, but we have entertained couriers before this.
This is the place for you."

"Ah, my dear," Agathemer replied, "we not only have had a long ride but we
may have to set out on a longer tomorrow, and you know the proverb:

"'Light lovers are seldom long lopers.'"

"If you were too much disinclined to being light lovers," the girl
retorted, "you'd never be strolling down this street. Come in!"

"My dear," said Agathemer, "we'd love to come in. But remember the
proverb:

"'Gay girls are not good for great gallopers.'"

"Oh, hang your proverbs," the girl laughed down at us. "I don't know what
you are up to, but I like you. You don't look as austere as you talk. And
I don't mind your asceticism. If you don't appreciate the entertainment
offered you, you can have any sort of entertainment you prefer. A goblet
of wine and an hour's chat won't enervate you or make you less fit. Come
in."

A horrible old Lydian woman, one-eyed, obese, clean enough of body and
clothing, but a foul old beast for all that, let us in.

Agathemer introduced me as Felix and himself as Asper. The merry dark-
haired girl was named Doris and her languorous comrade Nebris. A more
garish and gaudy creature than Doris I have never beheld. I was struck
with her profusion of jewels, mostly topazes, but also many carbuncles and
garnets; rings, bracelets, a necklace, a hair-comb and many big-headed
hair pins. Nebris was equally bejewelled with turquoises and opals, but,
somehow, they did not glitter like the jewelry on Doris, but partook of
their wearer's subdued coloring. As Doris remarked next day:

"Nebris is very graceful and almost pretty; but she was born faded, and
nothing can brighten her."

We found the girls housed in as neat, cosy and charming a little nest as
heart could wish for. The atrium was tiny, the courtyard was tiny,
everything was tiny. But it all had an air which put us at our ease and
made us feel at home. Doris, the dark-haired, red-cheeked, full-contoured
lass, was plainly much taken with Agathemer and he with her; I always had
a weakness for red-headed girls and felt genuinely pleased that Nebris,
her long-limbed, long-fingered, pale-skinned, blurred, bleached comrade
seemed equally taken with me. The sofas of the tiny _triclinium_ were soft
and comfortable and, after eight days in the saddle, without a bath, we
were glad to loll on them. The wine was good