included among important matters, nay the most
important?

Sabina had quitted the anteroom leaning on her chamberlain and Hadrian
was standing there alone with his slave Mastor. The old woman would not
be likely to have another such favorable opportunity of supplicating
the all-powerful man who stood before her, without the hindrance of
witnesses, to exercise his magnaminity and clemency towards her son. His
back turned to her; if she could have seen the threatening scowl with
which he stood gazing on the ground she would surely have remembered the
architect's warning and have postponed her address till a future day.

How often do we spoil our best chances by following an urgent instinct
to arrive at certainty as early as possible, and by not being strong
enough to postpone opening our business till a favorable moment offers.
Uncertainty in the present often seems less endurable than adverse fate
in the future.

Doris stepped out of the side door. Mastor, who knew his master well,
and whose friendly impulse was to spare the old woman any humiliation,
made eager signs to warn her to withdraw and not to disturb Hadrian at
that moment; but she was so wholly possessed by her anxiety and wishes
that she did not observe them. As the Emperor turned to leave the room
she gathered courage, stood in the doorway through which he must pass,
and tried to fall on her knees before him. This was a difficult effort
to her old joints and Doris was forced to clutch at the door-post in
order not to lose her balance.

Hadrian at once recognized the suppliant, but to-day he found no kind
word for her, and the glance he cast down at her was anything rather
than gracious. How had he ever been able to find amusement even in this
woeful old body? Alas! poor Doris was quite a different creature in her
little house, among her flowers, dogs and birds to what she seemed here
in the spacious hall of a magnificent palace. This wide and gorgeous
frame but ill-suited so modest a figure. Thousands of good people who in
the midst of their everyday surroundings command our esteem and attract
our regard give rise to very different feelings when they are taken out
of the circle to which they belong.

Doris had never worn so unpleasing an aspect to Hadrian as at this
instant, in this decisive moment of her life. She had followed the
Empress straight from the kitchen-hearth just as she was after passing a
sleepless night and full of her many anxieties, s