alleries connecting the chambers of the palace--all now
open to the light of day.

We may even penetrate to the boudoirs and tiring rooms of the proud
dames of antiquity. We may even examine at our will the secrets of the
toilet--the rouge pots and vases for cosmetics and unguents, the silver
mirrors, fibulas or brooches, armlets and jewels, and can thus
reconstruct much of that old Roman life which has vanished forever from
the face of the earth.[7]

By the light of modern exploration and discovery, therefore, we may
enter the private apartments of ladies of the Imperial household, and in
imagination re-furnish these now desolate and ruinous chambers with all
the luxury and magnificence of their former prime. A room of commodious
size is paved with tesselated marble slabs, adorned with borders and
designs of brilliant mosaic. The walls are also marble, save where an
elegant fresco on a stucco ground--flowers or fruit or graceful
landscape[8]--greet the eye. A small fountain throws up its silver
spray, imparting a grateful coolness to the air. Windows, void of
glass, but mantled and screened by climbing plants and rare exotics,
look out into a garden where snowy marble statues are relieved against
the dark green of the cypress and ilex. Around the room are busts and
effigies of the Imperial household or of historical characters. There
is, however, a conspicuous absence of the mythological figures, whose
exquisite execution does not atone for their sensuous conception, which,
rescued from the _debris_ of ancient civilization, crowd all the
Art-galleries of Europe. That this is not the result of accident but of
design is seen by an occasional empty pedestal or niche. Distributed at
intervals are couches and tables of costly woods, inlaid with ivory, and
bronze and silver candelabra, lamps and other household objects of
ornament or use. Sitting in an ivory chair amid all this elegance and
luxury was a lady in the very flower of her youth, of queenly dignity
and majestic beauty. She wore a snowy _stola_, or robe of finest linen,
with purple border, flowing in ample folds to her sandaled feet Over
this was negligently thrown a saffron-coloured veil of thinnest tissue.
She held in her hand a burnished silver mirror, at which she glanced
carelessly from time to time, while a comely slave with dark lustrous
eyes and finely-formed features carefully brushed and braided her long
and rippling hair.

This queenly presence was th