held the floor, and their hostess, seeking to rally the young knights,
challenged their skill in courtly compliment.

"O men, who have forgotten the love of women these days, look at her!"

So spoke the Lady Lucia--she that was widow of the Praefect Publius,
who fell with half his cohort in the desert wars.

She had risen from a chair of ebony enriched by cunning Etruscan
art--four mounted knights charging across its heavy back in armor of
wrought gold. She stopped, facing the company, between two columns of
white marble beautifully sculptured. Upon each a vine rose, limberly
and with soft leaves in the stone, from base to capital. Her daughter
stood in the midst of a group of maids who were dressing her hair.

"Arria, will you come to me?" said the Lady Lucia.

The girl came quickly--a dainty creature of sixteen, her dark hair
waving, under jewelled fillets, to a knot behind. From below the knot
a row of curls fell upon the folds of her outer tunic. It was a filmy,
transparent thing--this garment--through which one could see the white
of arm and breast and the purple fillets on her legs.

"She is indeed beautiful in the yellow tunic. I should think that
scarlet rug had caught fire and wrapped her in its flame," said the
poet Ovid.

"Nay, her heart is afire, and its light hath the color of roses," said
an old philosopher who sat by. "Can you not see it shining through her
cheeks?"