though I had known her for years! Have we not talked together?'

'Once. The first time does not count; you exchanged hardly a dozen
words. When,' added Aurelia, smiling, 'were you so dashed in a
maid's presence?'

'Nay, never! I am not accused of too much modesty; but when I
entered and looked on Veranilda--oh, it was the strangest moment
of my life! Noble cousin,' he added pleadingly, 'honoured Aurelia,
do but tell me what is her parentage?'

'How does that concern your Excellence? I have told you all that it
imports you to know--at all events for the present. Cousin Basil,
you delay the letter; I should wish her to have it before nightfall,
for she thinks anxiously of me.'

'I go. When may I again speak with you?'

'You shall hear when I am at leisure.'

Basil despatched his servant to Cumae not with one letter only, but
with two. Greatly daring, he had himself written to Veranilda; in
brief terms, but every word tremulous with his passion. And for half
an hour he stood watching the sail which wafted his messenger over
the gulf, ruffled to-day by a south-west wind, driver of clouds.
Little thought had he to give to the dying Maximus, but at the ninth
hour he turned his steps to the oratory, once a temple of Isis, and
heard the office, and breathed a prayer for his kindly relative.
Which duty discharged, he prayed more fervently, to whatever saint
or deity has ear for such petitions, that he might be loved by the