our olive garlands on the altar. I felt a strange emotion of almost
sacred tenderness at this companionship. We, strangers from a far and
fallen land, stood together and alone in that temple of our country's
deity: was it not natural that my heart should yearn to my countrywoman,
for so I might surely call her? I felt as if I had known her for years;
and that simple rite seemed, as by a miracle, to operate on the
sympathies and ties of time. Silently we left the temple, and I was
about to ask her where she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visit
her, when a youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblance
to her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fane, took her by the
hand. She turned round and bade me farewell. The crowd separated us: I
saw her no more. On reaching my home I found letters, which obliged me
to set out for Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigation
concerning my inheritance. When that suit was happily over, I repaired
once more to Neapolis; I instituted inquiries throughout the whole city,
I could discover no clue of my lost countrywoman, and, hoping to lose in
gaiety all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to
plunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history.
I do not love; but I remember and regret.'

As Clodius was about to reply, a slow and stately step approached them,
and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles, each turned, and each
recognized the new-comer.

It was a man who had scarcely reached his fortieth year, of tall
stature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame. His skin, dark and
bronzed, betrayed his Eastern origin; and his features had something
Greek in their outline (especially in the chin, the lip, and the brow),
save that the nose was somewhat raised and aquiline; and the bones, hard
and visible, forbade that fleshy and waving contour which on the Grecian