I wrote to you yesterday about the charming Barbarian child. Child? She is one no longer. The delicate, yet lovely outlines of her form have developed into exquisite roundness. And Barbarian? If she ever was one she has ceased to be so, since Ausonius taught her the pomp of the Latin language. How shall I describe her to you without drawing, no, painting her? For it is precisely the charm of her coloring that is so peerless. If only I had brought with me Paralos, my Ionian slave, who painted the nymphs so exquisitely--you know--in my little dining hall yonder, in the villa in the Province Noverus! And the expression--the vivacity--in those ever varying features, now full of mischievous wrath, now mirth, now jest, and anon of a sorrowful yearning which to me is full of mystery. And the dainty figure! Recently her leather sandals stuck fast in the mire outside the camp ditch. How white and charming were the little feet! How can they even support the figure, lightly as it floats along? The muse which so long has shunned me has again returned in the form of this Suabian girl: a fairer metamorphosis than ever Ovid dreamed. Verses well up in my mind ceaselessly. Just listen! "Nature had dowered Bissula with charms which the greatest of artists Vainly to picture would strive. Doubtless to full many another Justice he might do by use of the pigments of red and of white lead: Coloring like hers, alas! will forever escape him, unless he should paint Her face with a lily's lustre, on which the breath of a rose hath rested." Ah, my friend, with the feelings that come to me, I am often ashamed of the half century I bear with me. Fain would I sacrifice something to Anteros--most willingly my gray hairs! A short time ago the little maid amazed us all (Saturninus was even more surprised than I; for I am already beginning to believe her almost supernatural) by showing strategic insight. It was mentioned that while making a tour on the southwestern wall I had saved her little hut from burning, while our cohorts usually flung the torch with eager zeal into the wooden houses of the Barbarians. Then Saturninus remarked that by accident another building had been spared, a house with a lofty gable roof rising on a hill farther toward the southwest. None of our reconnoitring parties had marched in that direction. My nephew called one of his men and ordered two of them to ride over the next day and burn the dwelling down. Suddenly the girl, with flashing eyes, cried: "How stupid!" and laughed. Courtesy is not her favorite virtue, and she and my nephew waste little love on each other. "How stupid!" she repeated, "The building is very solid, the fence inclosing it very high; it is almost a citadel like your camp here; and it is between you and the lake--to which you must fly if my people come. You could fortify yourselves there again, if you are forced to leave here as the fox darts from its burrow."