daughter in the Circus, watching the gladiatorial contest, was yellow
and drawn. The jewels were a mockery in the shadow of threatened
death.

It was nearing sundown when Virgilia, very tired from the hours passed
in gently soothing her mother's querulous complaints, giving her
cooling drinks and telling her old Grecian legends to amuse her,
entered her own little cubicleum, her sleeping-chamber.

In Roman houses, the sleeping quarters were the smallest, the worst
ventilated of all. It is a superstition, come down to modern times,
that night air is injurious. Many ancient Roman dwellings show that
rooms used for sleeping sometimes had no windows at all, the sole
means of ventilation being provided by the doorway, which was
curtained, opening into a larger room, or by a small trap door in the
ceiling.

The furniture in Virgilia's room was very simple. The bed was a couch,
covered with white, with head and foot-board of ebony, curved in form
and inlaid with quaint flower designs in mother-of-pearl. There was
one chair, with slender arms, also in ebony and mother-of-pearl, and a
stand, with ewer and basin of beaten brass. The floor was laid in red
brick, and on it, at the bedside, lay a tiger-skin, brought from the
East. Its tawny tints, varied by bright yellow, were the only colors
in the room.

Virgilia was fond of fresh air. She pushed up the trap door in the
roof, reaching it easily, as the ceiling was so low, and let in a
flood of glorious evening light. Through the aperture she could see a
patch of brilliant blue sky. The swallows, dipping and circling, were