eir long and
patient waiting. For the season of the year the day was hot, unnaturally
so; and the sky filled with those massive clouds, piled like mountains
of snow one upon another, which, while they both please the eye by their
forms, and veil the fierce splendors of the sun, as they now and then
sail across his face, at the same time portend wind and storm. All Rome
was early astir. It was ushered in by the criers traversing the streets,
and proclaiming the rites and spectacles of the day, what they were, and
where to be witnessed, followed by troops of boys, imitating, in their
grotesque way, the pompous declarations of the men of authority, not
unfrequently drawing down upon their heads the curses and the batons of
the insulted dignitaries. A troop of this sort passed the windows of
the room in which Julia and I were sitting at our morning meal. As the
crier ended his proclamation, and the shouts of the applauding urchins
died away, Milo, who is our attendant in preference to any and all
others, observed,

'That the fellow of a crier deserved to have his head beat about with
his own rod, for coming round with his news not till after the greatest
show of the day was over.'

'What mean you?' I asked. 'Explain.'

'What should I mean,' he replied, 'but the morning sacrifice at the
temple.'

'And what so wonderful,' said Julia, 'in a morning sacrifice? The
temples are open every morning, are they not?'

'Yes, truly are they,' rejoined Milo; 'but not for so great a purpose,
nor witnessed by so great crowds. Curio wished me to have been there,
and says nothing could have been more propitious. They died as the gods
love to have them.'

'Was there no bellowing nor struggling, then?' said Julia.

'Neither, Curio assures me; but they met the knife of the priest as they
would the sword of an enemy on the field of battle.'

'How say you?' said Julia, quickly, turning pale; 'do I hear aright,
Milo, or are you mocking? God forbid that you should speak of a human
sacrifice.'

'It is even so, mistress. And why should it not be so? If the favor of
the gods, upon whom we all depend, as the priests tell us, is to be
purchased so well in no other way, what is the life of one man, or of
many, in such a cause? The great Gallienus, when his life had been less
ordered than usual after the rules of temperance and religion, used to
make amends by a few captives slain to Jupiter; to which, doubtless, may
be ascribed his prosperous