conquests. Of Vespasian and his second legion the jejune page of
Suetonius records neither where they landed nor at what limit their
victorious eagles were stayed. Yet will the patient investigator trace
their footprints across many a familiar landscape of rural England,
led by the blurred imperishable impress he has learned to recognise.
The invading host sweeps forward, and is gone; but behind it the
homestead arises and smiles upon the devastated fields, arms yield to
the implements and habiliments of peace, and the colonist, who
supersedes the legionary, in time furnishes the sole evidence of his
feverish and ensanguined transit . . ."

Narcissus was enjoying himself amazingly. His audience endured him
because the experience was new, and their ears caught the rattle of
tea-cups in the adjoining library.

Dorothea sat counting her guests, and assuring herself that the number
of teacups would suffice. She had heard the lecture many times before,
and with repetition its sonorous periods had lost hold upon her,
although her brother had been at pains to model them upon Gibbon.

But the scene impressed her sharply, and she carried away a very
lively picture of it. The old Roman villa had been built about a
hollow square open to the sky, and this square now formed the great
hall of Bayfield. Deep galleries of two stories surrounded it, in
place of the old colonnaded walk. Out of these opened the principal
rooms of the house, and above them, upon a circular lantern of clear
glass, was arched a painted dome. Sheathed on the outside with green
weather-tinted copper, and surmounted by a gilt ball, this dome (which
could be seen from the Axcester High Street when winter stripped the
Bayfield elms) gave the building something of the appearance of an