fference had ceased to
wound her, and whose tenderness she feared far more than his wild
irritability--she had never loved him.

She had grown up free from care among a number of brothers and sisters.
Her father had been the chief accountant of the decurions' college in his
native town, and he had lived opposite the circus, where, being of a
stern temper, he had never permitted his daughters to look on at the
games; but he could not prevent their seeing the crowd streaming into the
amphitheatre, or hearing their shouts of delight, and their eager cries
of approbation.

Sirona thus grew up in the presence of other people's pleasure, and in a
constantly revived and never satisfied longing to share it; she had,
indeed, no time for unnecessary occupations, for her mother died before
she was fully grown up, and she was compelled to take charge of the eight
younger children. This she did in all fidelity, but in her hours of
leisure she loved to listen to the stories told her by the wives of
officials, who had seen, and could praise, the splendors of Rome the
golden.

She knew that she was fair, for she need only go outside the house to
hear it said; but though she longed to see the capital, it was not for
the sake of being admired, but because there was there so much that was
splendid to see and to admire. So, when the Centurion Phoebicius, the
commandant of the garrison of her native town, was transferred to Rome,
and when he desired to take the seventeen-years-old girl with him to the
imperial city, as his wife--she was more than forty years younger than
he--she followed him full of hope and eager anticipation.

Not long after their marriage she started for Rome by sea from Massilia,
accompanied by an old relative; and he went by land at the head of his
cohorts.

She reached their destination long before her husband, and without
waiting for him, but constantly in the society of her old duenna, she
gave herself up with the freedom and eagerness of her fresh youth to the
delights of seeing and admiring.

It did not escape her, while she did so, that she attracted all eyes
wherever she went, and however much this flattered and pleased her at
first, it spoilt many of her pleasures, when the Romans, young and old,
began to follow and court her. At last Phoebicius arrived, and when he
found his house crowded with his wife's admirers he behaved to Sirona as
though she had long since betrayed his honor.

Nevertheless he dr