peasantry to starvation. And now a splendid aristocracy claimed to
rule a subject world, while the "Roman people" that had conquered that
world were a degenerate mob, whose suffrages in the elections were
purchasable--almost openly--by the highest bidder. The way was not
clear before Drusus; he only saw, with his blind, Pagan vision, that
no real liberty existed under present conditions; that Pompeius and
his allies, the Senate party, were trying to perpetuate the
aristocracy in power, and that Cæsar, the absent proconsul of the
Gauls, stood, at least, for a sweeping reform. And so the young man
made his decision and waited the march of events.

But once at Præneste all these forebodings were thrust into the
background. The builders and frescoers had done their work well in his
villa. A new colonnade was being erected. Coloured mosaic floors were
being laid. The walls of the rooms were all a-dance with bright Cupids
and Bacchantes--cheerful apartments for their prospective mistress.
But it was over to the country-house of the Lentuli that Drusus made
small delay to hasten, there to be in bliss in company with Cornelia,

"And how," he asked, after the young lady had talked of a dozen
innocent nothings, "do you like Agias, the boy I sent you?"

"I can never thank you enough--at least if he is always as clever and
witty as he has been since I have had him," was the reply. "I was
vexed at first to have a servant with such dreadful scars all over
him; but he is more presentable now. And he has a very droll way of
saying bright things. What fun he has made of Livia's dear mother, his
former mistress! I shall have to give up reading any wise authors, if
it will make me grow like Valeria. Then, too, Agias has won my favour,
if in no other way, by getting a thick grass stem out of the throat of