even in sport no man should try to win his neighbor's wife.
Do you think, the Gaulish woman is capable of forgetting her duty?"

Dorothea hesitated, and after some reflection answered, "She is a
beautiful and vain child--a perfect child; I mean in nature, and not
in years, although she certainly might be the grandchild of her strange
husband, for whom she feels neither love nor respect, nor, indeed,
anything but utter aversion. I know not what, but something frightful
must have come between them even in Rome, and I have given up all
attempts to guide her heart back to him. In everything else she is soft
and yielding, and often, when she is playing with the children, I
cannot imagine where she finds her reckless gaiety. I wish she were
a Christian, for she is very dear to me, why should I deny it? It is
impossible to be sad when she is by, and she is devoted to me, and
dreads my blame, and is always striving to win my approbation. Certainly
she tries to please every one, even the children; but, so far as I can
see, not more Polykarp than any one else, although he is such a fine
young man. No, certainly not."

"And yet the boy gazes at her," said Petrus, "and Phoebicius has noticed
it; he met me yesterday when I came home, and, in his sour, polite
manner, requested me to advise my son, when he wished to offer a rose,
not to throw it into his window, as he was not fond of flowers, and
preferred to gather them himself for his wife."

The senator's wife turned pale, and then exclaimed shortly and
positively, "We do not need a lodger, and much as I should miss his
wife, the best plan will be for you to request him to find another
dwelling."

"Say no more, wife," Petrus said, sternly, and interrupting her with a
wave of his hand. "Shall we make Sirona pay, for it because our son has
committed a folly for her sake? You yourself said, that her intercourse
with the children, and her respect for you, preserve her from evil, and
now shall we show her the door? By no means. The Gauls may remain in my
house so long as nothing occurs that compels me to send them out of it.
My father was a Greek, but through my mother I have Amalekite blood in
my veins, and I should dishonor myself, if I drove from my threshold
any, with whom I had once broken bread under my roof. Polykarp shall be
warned, and shall learn what he owes to us, to himself, and to the laws
of God. I know how to value his noble gifts, and I am his friend, but
I am also