t nose with his finger he replied:

"Very pretty, indeed, for any one to whom they are not directly
addressed. Would you like to hear the distich?"

"Read it to me, I beg of you."

"Well then," said the Corinthian, and sighing again he read aloud;

'Sweet is the lot of the couple whom love has united;
But gold is a debt, and needs must at once be restored.'

"There, that is the dose. But doves are not human creatures, and I
know at once what my answer shall be. Give me the fibula, Publius, that
clasps that cloak in which you look like one of your own messengers. I
will write my answer on the wax."

The Roman handed to Lysias the golden circlet armed with a strong pin,
and while he stood holding his cloak together with his hands, as he
was anxious to avoid recognition by the passers-by that frequented this
street, the Corinthian wrote as follows:

"When doves are courting the lover adorns himself only;
But when a youth loves, he fain would adorn his beloved."

"Am I allowed to hear it?" asked Publius, and his friend at once read
him the lines; then he gave the tablet to the boy, with the bracelet
which he hastily wrapped up again, and desired him to take it back
immediately to the fair Irene. But the Roman detained the lad, and
laying his hand on the Greek's shoulder, he asked him: "And if the young
girl accepts this gift, and after it many more besides--since you are
rich enough to make her presents to her heart's content--what then,
Lysias?"

"What then?" repeated the other with more indecision and embarrassment
than was his wont. "Then I wait for Klea's return home and--Aye! you may
laugh at me, but I have been thinking seriously of marrying this girl,
and taking her with me to Corinth. I am my father's only son, and for
the last three years he has given me no peace. He is bent on my mother's
finding me a wife or on my choosing one for myself. And if I took him
the pitch-black sister of this swarthy lout I believe he would be glad.
I never was more madly in love with any girl than with this little
Irene, as true as I am your friend; but I know why you are looking at me
with a frown like Zeus the Thunderer. You know of what consequence our
family is in Corinth, and when I think of that, then to be sure--"

"Then to be sure?" enquired the Roman in sharp, grave tone.

"Then I reflect that a water-bearer--the daughter of an outlawed man, in
our house--"

"And do you consider mine as being