seen, and could praise, the splendors of Rome the
golden.

She knew that she was fair, for she need only go outside the house to
hear it said; but though she longed to see the capital, it was not for
the sake of being admired, but because there was there so much that was
splendid to see and to admire. So, when the Centurion Phoebicius, the
commandant of the garrison of her native town, was transferred to Rome,
and when he desired to take the seventeen-years-old girl with him to the
imperial city, as his wife--she was more than forty years younger than
he--she followed him full of hope and eager anticipation.

Not long after their marriage she started for Rome by sea from Massilia,
accompanied by an old relative; and he went by land at the head of his
cohorts.

She reached their destination long before her husband, and without
waiting for him, but constantly in the society of her old duenna, she
gave herself up with the freedom and eagerness of her fresh youth to the
delights of seeing and admiring.

It did not escape her, while she did so, that she attracted all eyes
wherever she went, and however much this flattered and pleased her at
first, it spoilt many of her pleasures, when the Romans, young and old,
began to follow and court her. At last Phoebicius arrived, and when he
found his house crowded with his wife's admirers he behaved to Sirona as
though she had long since betrayed his honor.

Nevertheless he dragged her from pleasure to pleasure, and from one
spectacle to another, for it gratified him to show himself in public
with his beautiful young wife. She certainly was not free from
frivolity, but she had learnt early from her strict father, as being the
guide of her younger sisters, to distinguish clearly right from wrong,
and the pure from the unclean; and she soon discovered that the joys
of the capital, which had seemed at first to be gay flowers with bright
colors, and redolent with intoxicating perfume, bloomed on the surface
of a foul bog.

She at first had contemplated all that was beautiful, pleasant, and
characteristic with delight; but her husband took pleasure only in
things which revolted her as being common and abominable. He watched
her every glance, and yet he pointed nothing out to her, but what was
hurtful to the feelings of a pure woman. Pleasure became her torment,
for the sweetest wine is repulsive when it has been tasted by impure
lips. After every feast and spectacle he loaded her wi