the altars.

[10] The names of that great populace of "little gods," dear to the
Roman home, which the pontiffs had placed on the sacred list of the
Indigitamenta, to be invoked, because they can help, on special
occasions, were not forgotten in the long litany--Vatican who causes
the infant to utter his first cry, Fabulinus who prompts his first
word, Cuba who keeps him quiet in his cot, Domiduca especially, for
whom Marius had through life a particular memory and devotion, the
goddess who watches over one's safe coming home. The urns of the dead
in the family chapel received their due service. They also were now
become something divine, a goodly company of friendly and protecting
spirits, encamped about the place of their former abode--above all
others, the father, dead ten years before, of whom, remembering but a
tall, grave figure above him in early childhood, Marius habitually
thought as a genius a little cold and severe.

Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera.--

Perhaps!--but certainly needs his altar here below, and garlands to-day
upon his urn. But the dead genii were satisfied with little--a few
violets, a cake dipped in wine, or a morsel of honeycomb. Daily, from
the time when his childish footsteps were still uncertain, had Marius
taken them their portion of the family meal, at the second course,
amidst the silence [11] of the company. They loved those who brought
them their sustenance; but, deprived of these services, would be heard
wandering through the house, crying sorrowfully in the stillness of the
night.

And those simple gifts, like other objects as trivial--bread, oil,
wine, milk--had regained for him, by their use in such religious
service, that poetic and as it were moral significance, which surely
belongs to all the means of daily life, could we but break through the
veil of our familiarity with things by no means vulgar in themselves. A
hymn followed, while the whole assembly stood with veiled faces. The
fire rose up readily from the altars, in clean, bright flame--a
favourable omen, making it a duty to render the mirth of the evening
complete. Old wine was poured out freely for the servants at supper in
the great kitchen, where they had worked in the imperfect light through
the long evenings of winter. The young Marius himself took but a very
sober part in the noisy feasting. A devout, regretful after-taste of
what had been really