us standpoint, she would have been
reckoned very beautiful. She had by nature large brown eyes, luxuriant
brown hair, and what had been a clear brunette skin, and well-rounded
and regular features. But her lips were curled in hard, haughty lines,
her long eyelashes drooped as though she took little interest in life;
and, worse than all, to satisfy the demands of fashion, she had
bleached her hair to a German blonde, by a process ineffective and
injurious. The lady was just fuming to herself over a gray hair
Arsinoe had discovered, and Arsinoe went around in evident fear lest
Valeria should vent her vexation on her innocent ministers.

Over in one corner of the room, on a low divan, was sitting a
strange-looking personage. A gaunt, elderly man clothed in a very
dingy Greek himation, with shaggy grey hair, and an enormous beard
that tumbled far down his breast. This personage was Pisander,
Valeria's "house-philosopher," who was expected to be always at her
elbow pouring into her ears a rain of learned lore. For this worthy
lady (and two thousand years later would she not be attending lectures
on Dante or Browning?) was devoted to philosophy, and loved to hear
the Stoics[36] and Epicureans expound their varying systems of the
cosmos. At this moment she was feasting her soul on Plato. Pisander
was reading from the "Phaidros," "They might have seen beauty shining
in brightness, when the happy band, following in the train of Zeus (as
we philosophers did; or with the other gods, as others did), saw a
vision, and were initiated into most blessed mysteries, which we
celebrated in our state of innocence; and having no feeling of evils
yet to come; beholding apparitions, innocent and simple and calm and
happy as in a mystery; shining in pure light; pure ourselves, and not
yet enchained in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we
are imprisoned in the body ..."

[36] The opponents of the Epicureans; they nobly antagonized the mere
pursuit of pleasure held out as the one end of life by the Epicurean,
and glorified duty.

"Pratinas, to see her ladyship!" bawled a servant-boy[37] at the
doorway, very unceremoniously interrupting the good man and his
learnedly sublime lore. And Pratinas, with the softest and sweetest of
his Greek smiles, entered the room.

[37] _Cubicularius_.

"Your ladyship does me the honour," he began, with an extremely
deferential salutation.

"Oh, my dear Pratinas," cried Valeria, in a l