elves be disturbed by the noise, and slept on.

"A watcher among a thousand!" said the architect, laughing.

"And this phalanx of dogs which guard the palace of a Caesar," added
Titianus, "might be vanquished with a blow. Take heed, the worthy matron
is about to wake."

The dame had in fact been disturbed by the barking. She sat up a little,
lifted her hands, and then, half singing, half muttering a few words, she
sank back again in her chair.

"This is delicious!" cried the prefect.

"Begone dull care" she sang in her sleep.

"How may this rare specimen of humanity look when she is awake?"

"I should be sorry to drive the old lady out of her nest!" said the
architect unrolling his scroll.

"You shall touch nothing in the little house," cried the prefect eagerly.
"I know Hadrian; he delights in such queer things and queer people, and I
will wager he will make friends with the old woman in his own way. Here
at last comes the steward of this palace."

The prefect was not mistaken; the hasty step he had heard was that of the
official they awaited. At some little distance they could already hear
the man, panting as he hurried up, and as he came, before Titianus could
prevent him, he had snatched down the cords that were stretched across
the court and flung all the washing on the ground. As soon as the curtain
had thus dropped which had divided him from the Emperor's representative
and his companion, he bowed to the former as low as the rotund dimensions
of his person would allow; but his hasty arrival, the effort of strength
he had made, and his astonishment at the appearance of the most powerful
personage in the Nile Province in the building entrusted to his care, so
utterly took away his breath--of which he at all times was but
"scant"--that he was unable even to stammer out a suitable greeting.
Titianus gave him a little time, and then, after expressing his regret at
the sad plight of the washing, now strewn upon the ground, and mentioning
to the steward the name and position of his friend Pontius, he briefly
explained to him that the Emperor wished to take up his abode in the
palace now in his charge; that he--Titianus--was cognizant of the bad
condition in which it then was, and had come to take council with him and
the architect as to what could be done in the course of a few days to
make the dilapidated residence habitable for Hadrian, and to repair, at
any rate, the more conspicuous damage. He then desired