know that Clodius is employed
at the house of Diomed in blowing hard at the torch? It begins to burn,
and will soon shine bright on the shrine of Hymen.'

'Is it so?' said Lepidus. 'What! Clodius become a married man?--Fie!'

'Never fear,' answered Clodius; 'old Diomed is delighted at the notion
of marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and will come down largely with
the sesterces. You will see that I shall not lock them up in the
atrium. It will be a white day for his jolly friends, when Clodius
marries an heiress.'

'Say you so?' cried Lepidus; 'come, then, a full cup to the health of
the fair Julia!'

While such was the conversation--one not discordant to the tone of mind
common among the dissipated of that day, and which might perhaps, a
century ago, have found an echo in the looser circles of Paris--while
such, I say, was the conversation in the gaudy triclinium of Lepidus,
far different the scene which scowled before the young Athenian.

After his condemnation, Glaucus was admitted no more to the gentle
guardianship of Sallust, the only friend of his distress. He was led
along the forum till the guards stopped at a small door by the side of
the temple of Jupiter. You may see the place still. The door opened in
the centre in a somewhat singular fashion, revolving round on its
hinges, as it were, like a modern turnstile, so as only to leave half
the threshold open at the same time. Through this narrow aperture they
thrust the prisoner, placed before him a loaf and a pitcher of water,
and left him to darkness, and, as he thought, to solitude. So sudden
had been that revolution of fortune which had prostrated him from the
palmy height of youthful pleasure and successful love to the lowest
abyss of ignominy, and the horror of a most bloody death, that he could
scarcely convince himself that he was not held in the meshes of some
fearful dream. His elastic and glorious frame had triumphed over a
potion, the greater part of which he had fortunately not drained. He
had recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and misty
depression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His natural
courage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to vanquish all
unbecoming apprehension, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awful
lot with a steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness of
innocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of men no
longer excited his haughty valor, and he