nd that one person?' said Nydia, eagerly.

'Is not Glaucus,' replied Julia, with the customary deceit of her sex.
'Glaucus--no!'

Nydia drew her breath more freely, and after a short pause Julia
recommenced.

'But talking of Glaucus, and his attachment to this Neapolitan, reminded
me of the influence of love-spells, which, for ought I know or care, she
may have exercised upon him. Blind girl, I love, and--shall Julia live
to say it?--am loved not in return! This humbles--nay, not humbles--but
it stings my pride. I would see this ingrate at my feet--not in order
that I might raise, but that I might spurn him. When they told me thou
wert Thessalian, I imagined thy young mind might have learned the dark
secrets of thy clime.'

'Alas! no, murmured Nydia: 'would it had!'

'Thanks, at least, for that kindly wish,' said Julia, unconscious of
what was passing in the breast of the flower-girl.

'But tell me--thou hearest the gossip of slaves, always prone to these
dim beliefs; always ready to apply to sorcery for their own low
loves--hast thou ever heard of any Eastern magician in this city, who
possesses the art of which thou art ignorant? No vain chiromancer, no
juggler of the market-place, but some more potent and mighty magician of
India or of Egypt?'

'Of Egypt?--yes!' said Nydia, shuddering. 'What Pompeian has not heard
of Arbaces?'

'Arbaces! true,' replied Julia, grasping at the recollection. 'They
say he is a man above all the petty and false impostures of dull
pretenders--that he is versed in the learning of the stars, and the
secrets of the ancient Nox; why not in the mysteries of love?'

'If there be one magician living whose art is above that of others, it
is that dread man,' answered Nydia; and she felt her talisman while she
spoke.

'He is too wealthy to divine for money?' continued Julia, sneeringly.
'Can I not visit him?'

'It is an evil mansion for the young and the beautiful,' replied Nydia.
'I have heard, too, that he languishes in...'

'An evil mansion!' said Julia, catching only the first sentence. 'Why
so?'

'The orgies of his midnight leisure are impure and polluted--at least,
so says rumor.'

'By Ceres, by Pan, and by Cybele! thou dost but provoke my curiosity,
instead of exciting my fears,' returned the wayward and pampered
Pompeian. 'I will seek and question him of his lore. If to these orgies
love be admitted--why the more likely that he knows its secrets!'

Nydia did not a