red one. If Cleopatra had been Mark
Antony's most bitter foe, she could not more surely have lured him on to
utter, hopeless ruin.

At last, the crisis came. Augustus Caesar had arrived upon the shores
of Egypt to avenge his sister's wrongs. Mark Antony's fate was sealed.
Once more the wretched woman tried her powers of fascination; but youth
and sprightliness were gone. She failed to captivate Augustus by her
winning manners, or move him by a display of her distress. Her power,
she realized at last, was gone; but grace his triumph in Rome she was
determined she would not. As a crowned queen she had lived; as one she
would die. The deadly asp, it is said, became the executioner of her
wicked will; and when the victor came to stay the act which would rob
him of a part of his revenge, he found the work accomplished. Cleopatra
would try her wiles no more.

Here was a woman who, by her adroitness and tact and a passionate will,
wielded an almost incredible power over some of the greatest men of that
age; whom she brought under her influence, and for years led them
whither she would, according to the whim which possessed her. Which was
the weaker mentally, Mark Antony or Cleopatra? It is for the historical
student to determine for himself. In licentiousness, they certainly were
on a par.

LUCRETIA.

Contrast the depravity of the wretched Cleopatra with the virtue of
Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, a distinguished Roman. Beautiful and, for
the time in which she lived, highly accomplished, she was the idol of
her husband. Loving and faithful to him, and attentive to the ordering
of her household, she was pronounced a model Roman dame. Virtue was
pre-eminently a characteristic of the Roman matron. A heartless
libertine, annoyed that Lucretia should stand so high, and fired by wine
and evil passion, determined to accomplish her downfall; and, while she
was helplessly in his power, effected his vile purpose. The outraged
woman waited till her husband and father could be summoned; and, having
told her dreadful tale, and entreated them to avenge her dishonor, she
plunged a dagger to her heart. A heathen, she knew not there was sin in
suicide, and preferred death to a tarnished reputation.

PORTIA.

Like Lucretia, Portia was a Roman matron of noble lineage, and still
nobler powers of mind. The daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus, it was
her ambition to prove herself worthy of such a sire and such a husband;
and, after the