blushing from modesty, with knees pressed together, with her hands on
her bosom, and downcast eyes. At last, raising her arms with sudden
movement, she removed the pins which held her hair, and in one moment,
with one shake of her head, she covered herself with it as with a
mantle.

Acte, approaching her and touching her dark tresses, said,--

"Oh, what hair thou hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it
gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves. I
will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly,
lightly, as if a sun ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian
country be where such maidens are born!

"I do not remember it," answered Lygia; "but Ursus has told me that with
us it is forests, forests, and forests."

"But flowers bloom in those forests," said Acte, dipping her hand in a
vase filled with verbena, and moistening Lygia's hair with it. When she
had finished this work, Acre anointed her body lightly with odoriferous
oils from Arabia, and then dressed her in a soft gold-colored tunic
without sleeves, over which was to be put a snow-white peplus. But
since she had to dress Lygia's hair first, she put on her meanwhile a
kind of roomy dress called synthesis, and, seating her in an armchair,
gave her for a time into the hands of slave women, so as to stand at a
distance herself and follow the hairdressing. Two other slave women put
on Lygia's feet white sandals, embroidered with purple, fastening them
to her alabaster ankles with golden lacings drawn crosswise. When at
last the hair-dressing was finished, they put a peplus on her in very
beautiful, light folds; then Acte fastened pearls to her neck, and