"What is the matter?" continued Cornelia, growing apprehensive.

"I wish to make the arrangements for your wedding," replied Lentulus,
continuing his pacing to and fro.

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Cornelia, cheerily. "I am so pleased you
wish to make everything agreeable for Quintus and for me!"

"I hope so," was the rather gloomy response.

Presently Drusus was seen coming up the shaded path at a very brisk
stride. He had been playing at fencing with old Mamercus, and his face
was all aglow with a healthy colour; there was a bright light in his
eye. When he saw Cornelia in the doorway he gave a laugh and broke
into a run, which brought him up to her panting and merry.

Then as he saw Lentulus he paused, half ashamed of his display of
boyish ardour, and yet, with a smile and a gracious salutation, asked
the older man if he was enjoying good health, and congratulated him on
his election.

The consul-designate was a little disarmed by this straightforward
mode of procedure. He dropped unuttered the elaborate exordium he had
been preparing on the tendency of young men to be led astray by
speciously pleading schemers, and found himself replying mildly to
questions about himself and various old friends of his, whom Drusus
had known as a boy before he went to Athens. But finally the young man
interrupted this pacific discourse with the query:--

"And, most noble Lentulus, what is the business on which you sent for