as given neither peace nor solitude. From day till dark
women fluttered around her, examining robes, jewels, head-dresses,
shoes, with question and comment. She must try on this and try on that;
she must be petted and caressed like a pampered plaything, and all with
significant glances of pity and concern.

Varia was very quiet these days. Childlike, she hid from Marius;
childlike, sulked when he found her. Childlike, also, she hung in
raptures over the gifts which were showered upon her, nor ever dreamed
that they were the price with which she was bought. She hung aloof,
shyly, from the invasion of her home; in her eyes a child's longing to
join the merrymaking, mingled with all its dread of a rebuff.

Marius, for his part, bore his honors easily. That he was popular among
the guests went without saying. He hunted with the men and talked of
state and war; he parried the agile thrusts of the women with laughing
skill; he made persistent love to Varia.

Nerissa, the old nurse who had brought up Varia from her forsaken
childhood, going in to her charge to instruct her formally in the duties
of wife and mother which lay before her, looked in at the door, smiled
to herself, and went away. Half a dozen young beauties had taken
possession before her, with chatter and laughter--slender Roman girls,
of the haughtiest blood in Britain. Julia danced on the marble floor, in
and out among the slender columns, in jewelled sandals of Varia's, her
skirts held high; Nigidia and Valencia, between them, examined a peplus
of white silk soft enough to be drawn through the hand, and woven with
threads of gold. Gratia, named for her mother, and daughter of Count
Pomponius of the Saxon Shore, sat on the couch beside Varia, slowly
waving a new fan of peacock's feathers set in a handle of chased gold.
Paula and Virginia were turning over an ivory casket of trinkets at a
table near by. Varia sat with empty hands, watching and listening. For
the first time in her darkened life she was knowing the companionship
of her own age and kind, very shy, but longing greatly to be friendly,
to talk and laugh as did these radiant others.

"Tell us, Varia, what thy lover hath given thee?" Paula called gayly
across the room. Julia, ceasing her dancing, put off the sandals,
slipped on her own, and came to sit by Varia, on the other side.

"Ay, tell us!" she cried, and slipped an arm around Varia's neck,
girlwise. Varia flushed, half with pleasure at the emb