haps the most noticeable traits
were the mingled reverence and familiarity with which he treated her. It
seemed as though he was actuated by an ever-pervading consciousness that
her exalted position demanded the observance of the deepest respect
toward her; but that this feeling was connected in his mind with an
unceasing struggle to remember that, after all, she was his own child,
and as such was not entitled to any undue consideration from him. Upon
the present occasion, he first timidly touched her cheek with his lips
and uttered a gentle and almost courtly salutation; but immediately
recollecting himself, and appearing to become impressed with the belief
that his unwitting deference was unworthy of the character of a father,
he proceeded to atone for the mistake by a rough and discomposing
embrace, and such a familiar and frolicksome greeting as none but a camp
follower would have felt flattered with. Then, seating himself before
her, he commenced his conversation in a rude and uncouth tone, and with
rather a forced affectation of military bluntness; from which, however,
as his eye dwelt upon the richness of her apparel and his mind began to
succumb to the charm of her native refinement, he gradually and
unconsciously subsided, in turn, into his former soft and deferential
manner.

'And so the imperator Sergius Vanno has returned,' he said, rolling upon
his tongue, with evident satisfaction, that high-sounding title--once
the acknowledged appellation of a conqueror, but now claimed as a right
by the imperial line alone, and no longer elsewhere bestowed except as
an informal and transitory compliment. 'It was a splendid ovation, and
well earned by a glorious campaign. There is no one in all the Roman
armies who could have managed it better.'

Nevertheless, with unconscious inconsistency, he immediately began to
show wherein the campaign could have been improved, and how many gross
mistakes were visible in every portion of it--how the force of Mutius
should have been diverged more in advancing inland--how, in the battle
along the shore, the three-oared galleys of Agricola should have been
drawn up to support the attack--the consequence of this omission, if the
leading cohort had met with a repulse--and the like. All this he marked
out upon the floor with a piece of coal, taking but little heed that
AEnone could not follow him; and step by step, in the ardor of criticism,
he advanced so far that he was soon ready to p