d not flow with its usual ease; and no sooner had Clodius
left him than Glaucus bent his way to the house of Ione. In passing by
the threshold he again encountered Nydia, who had finished her graceful
task. She knew his step on the instant.

'You are early abroad?' said she.

'Yes; for the skies of Campania rebuke the sluggard who neglects them.'

'Ah, would I could see them!' murmured the blind girl, but so low that
Glaucus did not overhear the complaint.

The Thessalian lingered on the threshold a few moments, and then guiding
her steps by a long staff, which she used with great dexterity, she took
her way homeward. She soon turned from the more gaudy streets, and
entered a quarter of the town but little loved by the decorous and the
sober. But from the low and rude evidences of vice around her she was
saved by her misfortune. And at that hour the streets were quiet and
silent, nor was her youthful ear shocked by the sounds which too often
broke along the obscene and obscure haunts she patiently and sadly
traversed.

She knocked at the back-door of a sort of tavern; it opened, and a rude
voice bade her give an account of the sesterces. Ere she could reply,
another voice, less vulgarly accented, said:

'Never mind those petty profits, my Burbo. The girl's voice will be
wanted again soon at our rich friend's revels; and he pays, as thou
knowest, pretty high for his nightingales' tongues.

'Oh, I hope not--I trust not,' cried Nydia, trembling. 'I will beg from
sunrise to sunset, but send me not there.'

'And why?' asked the same voice.

'Because--because I am young, and delicately born, and the female
companions I meet there are not fit associates for one who--who...'

'Is a slave in the house of Burbo,' returned the voice ironically, and
with a coarse laugh.

The Thessalian put down the flowers, and, leaning her face on her hands,
wept silently.

Meanwhile, Glaucus sought the house of the beautiful Neapolitan. He
found Ione sitting amidst her attendants, who were at work around her.
Her harp stood at her side, for Ione herself was unusually idle, perhaps
unusually thoughtful, that day. He thought her even more beautiful by
the morning light and in her simple robe, than amidst the blazing lamps,
and decorated with the costly jewels of the previous night: not the less
so from a certain paleness that overspread her transparent hues--not the
less so from the blush that mounted over them when he approa