in Rome, and I had not been there a week when I fell sick of fever.
King Theodoric knew better than to make his dwelling at Rome, and
Totila will never live there. The houses are so big and so close
together they scarce leave air to breathe; so old, too, they look as if
they would tumble upon your head. I have small liking for Ravenna,
where there is hardly dry land to walk upon, and you can't sleep for
the frogs. Verona is better. But, best of all, Mediolanum. There, if he
will listen to me, my brother shall have his palace and his court--as
they say some of the emperors did, I know not how long ago.'

Still gazing at the far distance, Veranilda murmured:

'I never saw the city nearer than this.'

'I would no one might ever look upon it again!' cried Athalfrida, her
blue eyes dark with anger and her cheeks hot. 'I would that the
pestilence, which haunts its streets, might make it desolate, and that
the muddy river, which ever and again turns it into a swamp, would hide
its highest palace under an eternal flood.'

Veranilda averted her face and kept silence. Thereupon the other seemed
to repent of having spoken so vehemently.

'Well, that's how I feel sometimes,' she said, in a voice suddenly
gentle. 'But I forgot--or I wouldn't have said it.'

'I well understand, dear lady,' replied her companion. 'Rome has never
been loyal to the Goths. And yet some Romans have.'

'How many? To be sure, you know one, and in your thought he stands for
a multitude. Come, you must not be angry with me, child. Nay, vexed,
then. Nay then, hurt and sad. I am not myself to-day. I dreamt last
night of the snowy mountains, and this warmth oppresses me. In truth, I
often fear I shall fall sick. Feel my hand, how hot it is. Where are
the children? Let us walk.'

Not far away she discovered three little boys, two of them her own, who
were playing at battles and sieges upon stairs which descended from
this terrace to the hippodrome below. After watching them awhile, with
laughter and applause, she threw an arm round Veranilda's waist, and
drew her on to a curved portico where, in a niche, stood a statue of
Antinous.

'Is that one of their gods, or an emperor?' asked Athalfrida. 'I have
seen his face again and again since we came here.'

'Indeed, I know not,' answered her companion. 'But surely he is too
beautiful for a man.'

'Beautiful? Never say that, child; for if it be as you think, it is the
beauty of a devil, and has led who kn