the Epicurean and Sybarite, stands side by side with the tender Virgil,
in whose verses we see the heart of the enamored Dido throbbing
and melting; Ovid the large-nosed, as sublime as he is obscene and
sycophantic, side by side with Martial, the eloquent and witty vagabond;
Tibullus the impassioned, with Cicero the grand; the severe Titus Livius
with the terrible Tacitus, the scourge of the Caesars; Lucretius the
pantheist; Juvenal, who flayed with his pen; Plautus, who composed
the best comedies of antiquity while turning a mill-wheel; Seneca the
philosopher, of whom it is said that the noblest act of his life was his
death; Quintilian the rhetorician; the immoral Sallust, who speaks so
eloquently of virtue; the two Plinys; Suetonius and Varro--in a word,
all the Latin letters from the time when they stammered their first word
with Livius Andronicus until they exhaled their last sigh with Rutilius.

But while making this unnecessary though rapid enumeration, we have not
observed that two women have entered the room. It is very early, but
the Orbajosans are early risers. The birds are singing to burst their
throats in their cages; the church-bells are ringing for mass, and the
goats, going from house to house to be milked, are tinkling their bells
gayly.

The two ladies whom we see in the room that we have described have just
come back from hearing mass. They are dressed in black, and each of them
carries in her right hand her little prayer-book, and the rosary twined
around her fingers.

"Your uncle cannot delay long now," said one of them. "We left him
beginning mass; but he gets through quickly, and by this time he will
be in the sacristy, taking off his chasuble. I would have stayed to hear
him say mass, but to-day is a very busy day for me."