The slave shook her head, and stammered an answer, "Phoebicius will not
have it so."

Sirona's eyes flashed angrily, and her voice, which was particularly
sweet, trembled slightly as she asked, "What is wrong with him again?"

"He says," replied the slave, "that the senator's son, Polykarp, goes
oftener past your window than altogether pleases him, and it seems to
him, that you occupy yourself more than is necessary with his little
brothers and sisters, and the other children up there."

"Is he still in there?" asked Sirona with glowing cheeks, and she
pointed threateningly to the dwelling-room.

"The master is out," stuttered the old woman. "He went out before
sunrise. You are not to wait for breakfast, he will not return till
late."

The Gaulish lady made no answer, but her head fell, and the deepest
melancholy overspread her features. The greyhound seemed to feel for the
troubles of his mistress, for he fawned upon her, as if to kiss her. The
solitary woman pressed the little creature, which had come with her from
her home, closely to her bosom; for an unwonted sense of wretchedness
weighed upon her heart, and she felt as lonely, friendless, and
abandoned, as if she were driving alone--alone--over a wide and
shoreless sea. She shuddered, as if she were cold--for she thought of
her husband, the man who here in the desert should have been all in all
to her, but whose presence filled her with aversion, whose indifference
had ceased to wound her, and whose tenderness she feared far more than
his wild irritability--she had never loved him.

She had grown up free from care among a number of brothers and sisters.
Her father had been the chief accountant of the decurions' college in
his native town, and he had lived opposite the circus, where, being of
a stern temper, he had never permitted his daughters to look on at the
games; but he could not prevent their seeing the crowd streaming into
the amphitheatre, or hearing their shouts of delight, and their eager
cries of approbation.

Sirona thus grew up in the presence of other people's pleasure, and in
a constantly revived and never satisfied longing to share it; she had,
indeed, no time for unnecessary occupations, for her mother died before
she was fully grown up, and she was compelled to take charge of the
eight younger children. This she did in all fidelity, but in her hours
of leisure she loved to listen to the stories told her by the wives of
officials, who had