he screen which concealed her playfellow and
his work from her gaze, the worthy matron had fallen gently asleep on a
couch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the noble
damsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration,
and that the super-encumbrance of such a mass must disfigure the effect
of the delicate features of her face. He implored her to remember in
how simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of the
plastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, and
requested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to come
to him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through the
curling-tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets would
fly back into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bent
back. Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested against
his desire to play the part of lady's maid, and defended her style of
hair-dressing on the score of fashion.

"But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one's eyes!" cried
Pollux. "Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herself
beautiful, but to be conspicuous."

"I hate the idea of being conspicuous by my appearance," answered
Balbilla. "It is precisely by following the fashion, however conspicuous
it may be, that we are less remarkable than when we carefully dress far
more simply and plainly--in short, differently to what it prescribes.
Which do you regard as the vainer, the fashionably-dressed young
gentleman on the Canopic way, or the cynical philosopher with his
unkempt hair, his carefully-ragged cloak over his shoulders, and a heavy
cudgel in his dirty hands?"

"The latter, certainly," replied Pollux. "Still he is sinning against
the laws of beauty which I desire to win you over to, and which will
survive every whim of fashion, as certainly as Homer's Iliad will
survive the ballad of a street-singer, who celebrates the last murder
that excited the mob of this town.--Am I the first artist who has
attempted to represent your face?"

"No," said Balbilla, with a laugh. "Five Roman artists have already
experimented on my head."

"And did any one of their busts satisfy you?"

"Not one seemed to me better than utterly bad."

"And your pretty face is to be handed down to posterity in five-fold
deformity?"

"Ah! no--I had them all destroyed."

"That was very good of them!" cried Pollux, eagerly. Then turning wi