did as she was bid, and at sundown in all Rome no more lovely maiden
could have been found than Virgilia, in her costly robes and flashing
jewels. But more beautiful than all, was the white, pure soul which no
man could see.

"Is it for a feast, Sahira?" asked Virgilia, looking at herself in the
long metal mirror, and smiling at the reflection. Virgilia was human.

"For a feast, your father said," replied the slave, leaving Virgilia
in her splendor, sitting in the fast-darkening room, alone.

The Senator Adrian Soderus, indeed, lost no time. He arrived at the
lawyer's house just at the hour of sundown, when the heavy clouds were
scattering and the sun sent shafts of golden light to turn the mists
overhanging the towers and pinnacles of Rome's palaces and temples
into filmy veils. It looked like a wraith-city, hung with yellow
gauze.

The chair stopped at the door and the noted man alighted with much
difficulty, for he was very stout from too much indulgence in the good
things of the world, and half-crippled with rheumatism, besides. It
took two strong slaves to lift him out and support him until he sank,
with a groan, on the largest and strongest seat possessed by Aurelius
Lucanus.

Claudia was given new life by the prospect of her daughter's marriage
to one of the wealthiest men in Rome, a thing which she had tried to
bring to pass some months before, but failed because of her husband's
opposition. He had said that it was wicked to give so fair a maiden as
Virgilia to this old and feeble man. Now, Claudia thanked the gods,