and spoiled the surface as though a Jewish spear had stricken
it.'

AEnone remained silent, scarcely listening to the words of her father,
while, in a troubled manner, she again mentally ran over, as she had
done hundreds of times before, the chances of recognition by the man who
stood before her.

'But listen to me still further,' continued the centurion, fearful lest
his disparaging comments might defeat the projected sale. 'I only speak
of him as he is useful or not to me. To another person he would be most
valuable; for, though he cannot polish armor, he can polish verses, and
he can write as well as though he were educated for a scribe. For one
favored of fortune like the imperator Sergius Vanno,' and here again the
centurion began to roll the high-sounding name upon his tongue with
obvious relish, 'who wishes an attendant to carry his wine cup, or to
bear his cloak after him, or to trim his lamps, and read aloud his
favorite books, where could a better youth than this be found?'

AEnone, still overpowered by her troubled thoughts, made no response.

'Or to yourself,' eagerly continued the centurion, 'he would be most
suitable, with his pale, handsome face, and his slender limbs. Have you
a page?'

'I have my maidens,' was the answer.

'And that amounts to nothing at all,' asserted her father. 'A plebeian
can have her maidens in plenty, but it is not right that the wife of a
high and mighty imperator,' and here again the words rolled majestically
off his tongue, 'should not also have her male attendants. And the more
so when that wife has been taken from an ancient house like that of
Porthenus,' he added, with a frown in derogation of any tendency to give
undue importance to her present position. 'But with this Cleotos--come
forward, slave, and let yourself be seen.'

Cleotos, who, partly from natural diffidence, and partly from being
abashed at the unaccustomed splendor about him, had, little by little,
from his first entrance, shrunk into a corner, now advanced; and AEnone,
once more resolutely assuring herself that, with the changes which time,
position, difference of place and costume had thrown about her, she
could defy recognition, summoned all her courage, and looked him in the
face. It may have been with an unacknowledged fear lest, now that she
saw him so freely in the broad daylight, some latent spark of the old
attachment might burst into a flame, and withdraw her heart from its
proper duty; but