dividualities. But
in dwelling so much on their bright and birdlike existence, I am
influenced almost insensibly by the forethought of the changes that
await them, and for which they were so ill prepared. It was this very
softness and gaiety of life that contrasted most strongly the
vicissitudes of their coming fate. For the oak without fruit or
blossom, whose hard and rugged heart is fitted for the storm, there is
less fear than for the delicate branches of the myrtle, and the laughing
clusters of the vine.

They had now advanced far into August--the next month their marriage was
fixed, and the threshold of Glaucus was already wreathed with garlands;
and nightly, by the door of Ione, he poured forth the rich libations.
He existed no longer for his gay companions; he was ever with Ione. In
the mornings they beguiled the sun with music: in the evenings they
forsook the crowded haunts of the gay for excursions on the water, or
along the fertile and vine-clad plains that lay beneath the fatal mount
of Vesuvius. The earth shook no more; the lively Pompeians forgot even
that there had gone forth so terrible a warning of their approaching
doom. Glaucus imagined that convulsion, in the vanity of his heathen
religion, an especial interposition of the gods, less in behalf of his
own safety than that of Ione. He offered up the sacrifices of gratitude
at the temples of his faith; and even the altar of Isis was covered with
his votive garlands--as to the prodigy of the animated marble, he
blushed at the effect it had produced on him. He believed it, indeed,
to have been wrought by the magic of man; but the result convinced him
that it betokened not the anger of a goddess.

Of Arbaces, they heard only that he still lived; stretched on the bed of
suffering, he recovered slowly from the effect of the shock he had
sustained--he left the lovers unmolested--but it was only to brood over
the hour and the method of revenge.

Alike in their mornings at the house of Ione, and in their evening
excursions, Nydia was usually their constant, and often their sole
companion. They did not guess the secret fires which consumed her--the
abrupt freedom with which she mingled in their conversation--her
capricious and often her peevish moods found ready indulgence in the
recollection of the service they owed her, and their compassion for her
affliction. They felt an interest in her, perhaps the greater and more
affectionate from the very st