with years?" laughed the matron. "Or do you think it
decreases?--But here he is."

The younger woman hurried away by a side door, behind which she
disappeared. Martina looked after her, and pointing that way to direct
her husband's glance, she observed: "She has left herself a chink. Good
God! Fancy being in love in such heat as this; what a hideous thought!"

At this moment the door was opened, and the heartiest greetings ensued.
It was evident that the meeting was as great a pleasure to the elderly
pair as to the young man. Justinus embraced him warmly, while the matron
cried out: "And a kiss for me too!" And when the youth immediately and
heartily gave it, she exclaimed with a groan:

"O man, and child of man, great Sesostris! How did your famous ancestor
ever achieve heroic deeds under such a sun as this? For my part I am
fast disappearing, melting away like butter; but what will a man not do
for love's sake?--Syra, Syra; for God's sake bring me something, however
small, that looks like a garment! How rational is the fashion of the
people of Africa whom we met with on our journey. If they have three
fingers' breadth of cloth about them, they consider themselves elegantly
dressed.--But come, sit down--there, at my feet. A seat, Argos, and some
wine, and water in a damp clay pitcher, and cool like the last.
Husband, the boy seems to me handsomer than ever. But dear God! he is in
mourning, and how becoming it is! Poor boy, poor boy! Yes, we heard in
Alexandria."

She wiped first her eyes and then her damp brow, and her husband added
his expressions of sympathy at the death of the Mukaukas.

They were a genial and comfortable couple, Justinus and his wife
Martina. Two beings who felt perfectly secure in their vast inherited
wealth, and who, both being of noble birth, never need make any display
of dignity, because they were sure of it in the eyes of high and low
alike. They had asserted their right to remain natural and human under
the formalities of the most elaborately ceremonious society; those who
did not like the easy tone adopted by them in their house might stay
away. He, devoid of ambition, a senator in virtue of his possessions and
his name, never caring to make any use of his adventitious dignity but
that of procuring good appointments for his favorite clients, or good
places for his family on any festive occasion, was a hospitable soul;
the good friend of all his friends, whose motto was "live and let li