oicest feathers of
white German geese. Heaped on the cushion were gorgeous coverlets, of
purple wool or even silk, and embroidered with elaborate figures, or
covered with rare feather tapestry. Around the room were silver
mirrors, chairs, divans, cabinets, dressers, and elegant tripods.

On one of the divans slept Artemisia, and just outside of the door one
of the Gallic maids, whom Cornelia detested so heartily.

When Artemisia's curly head touched her pillow, its owner was fast
asleep in an instant. When her patroness sank back on the cushions
worth a king's ransom, Somnus, Hypnus, or whatever name the drowsy god
may be called by, was far from present. Cornelia tossed on the
pillows, tossed and cried softly to herself. The battle was too hard!
She had tried: tried to be true to Drusus and her own higher
aspirations. But there was some limit to her strength, and Cornelia
felt that limit very near at hand. Earlier in the conflict with her
uncle she had exulted in the idea that suicide was always in her
power; now she trembled at the thought of death, at the thought of
everything contained in the unlovely future. She did not want to die,
to flicker out in nothingness, never to smile and never to laugh
again. Why should she not be happy--rightly happy? Was she not a
Cornelian, a Claudian, born to a position that a princess might enjoy?
Was not wealth hers, and a fair degree of wit and a handsome face? Why
then should she, the patrician maiden, eat her heart out, while close
at hand Artemisia, poor little foundling Greek, was sleeping as
sweetly as though people never grieved nor sorrows tore the soul?

Cornelia was almost angry with Artemisia for being thus oblivious to
and shielded from calamity. So hot in fact did her indignation become
against the innocent girl, that Cornelia herself began to smile at her
own passion. And there was one thought very comforting to her pride.

"Artemisia is only an uneducated slave, or little better than a slave;
if she were in my station she would be just as unhappy. I am wretched
just in proportion to the greatness of my rank;" then she added to
herself, "_Hei!_ but how wretched then the gods must be!" And then
again she smiled at admitting for an instant that there were any gods
at all; had not her philosophy taught her much better?

So at last Cornelia turned over the pillows for the last time, and
finally slept, in heavy, dreamless slumber.

* * * *