t
show you our praefurnium."

"The house would be remarkable anywhere--even in my own Provence--so
closely has it kept the original lines. In half-an-hour one could
reconstruct--"

"Ay!" chimed in the delighted Narcissus. "You shall try, M. Raoul,
you shall try! I promise to catch you tripping."

"Yonder runs the Fosse Way, west by south. The villa stands about two
hundred yards back from it, facing the south-east--"

"A little east of south. The outer walls did not run exactly true with
the enclosed quadrangle."

"You say that the front measured two hundred feet, perhaps a little
over. Clearly, then, it was a domain of much importance, and the
granaries, mills, stables, slaves' dwellings would occupy much space
about it--an acre and a half, at least."

"Portions of a brick foundation were unearthed no less than three
hundred yards away. A hypocaust lay embedded among them, much broken
but recognisable."

"What puzzles me," mused M. Raoul, is how these southern settlers
managed to endure the climate."

"But that is explicable." Narcissus was off now, in full cry. "The
trees, my dear sir, the trees! I have not the slightest doubt that our
Bayfield elms are the ragged survivors of an immense forest--a forest
which covered the whole primaeval face of Somerset on this side of the
fens, and through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their
way. Given these forests--which, by the way, extended over the greater
part of England--we must infer a climate totally unlike ours of this
present day, damper perhaps, but milder. Within his belt of trees the
colonist, secure from the prevailing winds, would plant a garden to
rival your gardens of the South--_'primus vere rosam atque autumno
carpere Poma.'_"

"Yes," added M. Raoul, taking fire; "and, perhaps, a plant of
helichryse or a rose-cutting from Paestum, to twine about the house-
pillars and comfort his exile."

"M. Raoul?" Dorothea's voice interrupted them. She stood by the looped
curtain, and reproached Narcissus with a look. "He has had no tea yet;
it was cruel of you to detain him. My brother, sir," she turned to
Raoul, "has no conscience when once set going on his hobby; for, of
course, you were discussing the pavement?"

"We were talking, Mademoiselle, at that moment of the things which
brighten and comfort exile."

She lowered her eyes, conscious of a blush, and half angry that it
would not be restrained.

"And I was talking of tea, if that hap