not of them! They certainly live!--but they are bad spirits, and
he who names them, he calls them near; thus warns the Presbyter of the
Basilica."

"I fear them not. They have protected our ancestors for many
generations."

"Yes, but we have turned away from them! They defend us no longer. Only
the saints are our defenders against the barbarians. Alas! if they came
here, trampled down the flowers in the garden, and carried away our
child."

And she knelt down and kissed the little sleeper.

But the young father laughed. "The Germans, dost thou mean? they steal
no children! They have more than they can feed. But it is true----they
may perhaps one day sound out their war-cry before the gates of
Juvavum."

"Yes, that they may, very soon!" broke in an anxious voice, and the fat
Crispus, breathing heavily after his hot walk, entered the garden.

"Ave, Phidias in plaster," cried Fulvius to him.

"Welcome, uncle," said Felicitas, giving him her hand.

The broad-brimmed felt hat which he had drawn over his brow to protect
his red, fat, shining, good-humoured face, and his stump nose, from the
sun, Crispus threw on his neck, so that it hung by the leather strap on
his broad back. "May Hygeia never leave thee, my daughter; the Graces
never forsake thee, their fourth sister. Yes, the Germans! A horseman
came last night with secret information for the Tribune. But two hours
after we knew it all, we, early guests at the Baths of Amphitrite. The
rider is a Wascon; no Wascon keeps his mouth closed if you pour wine
therein. A battle has been fought at the ford of the Isar: our troops
have fled, the watch-tower of Vada is burnt. The barbarians have
crossed the river."

"Bah!" laughed Fulvius, "that is yet far away. Go, darling, prepare a
cooling drink for our uncle--thou knowest what he likes: not too much
water! And _if_ they come, they will not eat us. They are fierce giants
in battle--children after the victory. Have I not lived months among
them as their prisoner? I fear nothing from them."

"Nothing for thyself--but for this sweet wife?"

Felicitas did not hear this question; she had taken up the child and
gone with it into the house.

Fulvius shook his curly locks. "No! They would do nothing to her, that
is not their custom. Certainly, did I fall, she would not be long left
a widow. But there are people not in the bearskins of the barbarians,
who would willingly tear her from the arms of her husband."

And he seiz