er woman to win hearts; in my parents'
house no child ever enjoyed so slender a share of the gifts of love,
and none can know better than you that my husband did not spoil me with
tenderness."

"I could repent of it at this moment."

"It would be too late now. But I will not be bitter--no, indeed I will
not. And yet if you are to understand me I must own that so long as I
was young I longed bitterly for the love which no one offered me."

"And you yourself have never loved?"

"No--but it pained me that I could not. In Plotina's apartments I often
saw the children of her relations, and many a time I tried to attract
them to me, but while they would play confidently with other women they
seemed to shun me. Soon I even grew cross to them--only our Verus, the
little son of Celonius Commodus, would give me frank answers when I
spoke to him, and would bring me his broken toys that I might mend their
injuries. And so I got to love the child."

"He was a wonderfully sweet, attractive boy."

"He was indeed. One day we women were all sitting together in Caesar's
garden. Verus came running out with a particularly fine apple that
Trajan himself had given him. The rosy-cheeked fruit was admired by
every one. Then Plotina, in fun took the apple out of the boy's hand and
asked him if he would not give his apple to her. He looked at her with
wide-open puzzled eyes, shook his curly head, ran up to me and gave
me--yes, me, and no one else--the fruit, throwing his arms round my neck
and saying, 'Sabina you shall have it.'"

"The judgment of Paris."

"Nay, do not jest now. This action of an unselfish child gave me courage
to endure the troubles of life. I knew now that there was one creature
that loved me, and that one repaid all that I felt for him, all that
I was never weary of doing for him with affectionate liking. He is the
only being, of whom I know, that will weep when I die. Give him the
right to call me his mother and make him our son."

"He is our son," said Hadrian, with dignified gravity, and held out his
hand to Sabina. She tried to lift it to her lips but he drew it away and
went on:

"Inform him that we accept him as our son. His wife is the daughter of
Nigrinus--who had to go, as I desired to stay and stand firm. You do
not love Lucilla, but we must both admire her for I do not know another
woman in Rome whose virtue a man might vouch for. Besides, I owe her a
father, and am glad to have such a daughter; thus we