ht else on earth. When she
had undressed Lygia, she could not restrain an exclamation of wonder at
sight of her form, at once slender and full, created, as it were, from
pearl and roses; and stepping back a few paces, she looked with delight
on that matchless, spring-like form.

"Lygia," exclaimed she at last, "thou art a hundred times more beautiful
than Poppaea!"

But, reared in the strict house of Pomponia, where modesty was observed,
even when women were by themselves, the maiden, wonderful as a wonderful
dream, harmonious as a work of Praxiteles or as a song, stood alarmed,
blushing from modesty, with knees pressed together, with her hands on
her bosom, and downcast eyes. At last, raising her arms with sudden
movement, she removed the pins which held her hair, and in one moment,
with one shake of her head, she covered herself with it as with a
mantle.

Acte, approaching her and touching her dark tresses, said,--

"Oh, what hair thou hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it
gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves.
I will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly,
lightly, as if a sun ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian
country be where such maidens are born!

"I do not remember it," answered Lygia; "but Ursus has told me that with
us it is forests, forests, and forests."

"But flowers bloom in those forests," said Acte, dipping her hand in a
vase filled with verbena, and moistening Lygia's hair with it. When she
had finished this work, Acte anointed her body lightly with odoriferous
oils from Arabia, and then dressed her in a soft gold-colored tunic
without sleeves, over which was to be put a snow-white peplus. But since
she had to dress Lygia's hair first, she put on her meanwhile a kind of
roomy dress called synthesis, and, seating her in an armchair, gave her
for a time into the hands of slave women, so as to stand at a distance
herself and follow the hairdressing. Two other slave women put on
Lygia's feet white sandals, embroidered with purple, fastening them to
her alabaster ankles with golden lacings drawn crosswise. When at
last the hair-dressing was finished, they put a peplus on her in very
beautiful, light folds; then Acte fastened pearls to her neck, and
touching her hair at the folds with gold dust, gave command to the women
to dress her, following Lygia with delighted eyes meanwhile.

But she was ready soon; and when the first li