anything."

"What a stubborn little head we have under our curls!" exclaimed the
Empress, raising a graciously threatening finger.

"And what powers of apprehension," added Florus.

"Her master in language and metre told me his best pupil was a woman of
noble family and a poetess besides--Balbilla in short."

The girl colored at the words, and said with pleased excitement:

"Are you flattering me or did Hephaestion really say that?"

"Woe is me!" cried the praetor, "for Hephaestion was my master too, and I
am one of the masculine scholars beaten by Balbilla. But it is no news to
me, for the Alexandrian himself told me the same thing as Florus."

"You follow Ovid and she Sappho," said Florus; "you write in Latin and
she in Greek. Do you still always carry Ovid's love-poems about with
you?"

"Always," replied Verus, "as Alexander did his Homer."

"And out of respect for his master your husband endeavors, by the grace
of Venus, to live like him," added Sabina, addressing herself to Domitia
Lucilla.

The tall and handsome Roman lady only shrugged her shoulders slightly in
answer to this not very kindly-meant speech; but Verus said, while he
picked up Sabina's silken coverlet, and carefully spread it over her
knees:

"My happiest fortune consists in this: that Venus Victrix favors me. But
we are not yet at the end of our story; our Lesbian swan met at Lochias
with another rare bird, an artist in statuary."

"How long have the sculptors been reckoned among birds?" asked Sabina.
"At the utmost can they be compared to woodpeckers."

"When they work in wood," laughed Verus. "Our artist, however, is an
assistant of Papias, and handles noble materials in the grand style. On
this occasion, however, he is building a statue out of a very queer
mixture of materials."

"Verus may very well call our new acquaintance a bird," interrupted
Balbilla, "for as we approached the screen behind which he is working he
was whistling a tune with his lips, so pure and cheery, and loud, that it
rang through the empty hall above all the noise of the workmen. A
nightingale does not pipe more sweetly. We stood still to listen till the
merry fellow, who had no idea that we were by, was silent again; and then
hearing the architect's voice, he called to him over the screen. 'Now we
must clap Urania's head on; I saw it clearly in my mind and would have
had it finished with a score of touches, but Papias said he had one in
the workshop. I am