"What has Marcella's father got to do with you, little one?" he
asked roughly. "Neither he nor she is anything to you, a patrician's
daughter. Slaves both of them! Let me hear no more of them. And as
for the brooch, it shall be a handsome one."

But when he had gone Livia turned to the slave and said, "I shall
never wear that brooch, Marcella."


So the day wore into the night, and all through the night Marcella
lay awake, wondering what the morrow would bring forth. When at
last she fell asleep she dreamed that she was in the Circus Maximus
watching her father, who was fighting with a new gladiator. She saw
her father fall. She heard the cries of the populace. She herself,
a girl of fourteen summers, sprang up to help him. And then she
awoke.

"Ah, it was only a dream!" she cried, with a sigh of relief. "Father
will win the fight to-morrow, and then he will buy his own freedom
and mine, too."

It was a beautiful day for the Public Games. People had come from
all parts of the country, and the streets of Rome were crowded with
all manner of folk.

The AEdile whose duty it was to arrange the Public Games had
provided a very costly entertainment, and great excitement prevailed
everywhere to know the issue of the contest between the gladiators
Naevus and Lucius. It was a wonderful sight to see the Circus