Yet why only for a visit? Why should she not remain in my house always to beautify my advancing years with the roseate dawn of her youth? Yes. Eos, Aurora: it is a fitting symbol for her. So young, so full of the dewy freshness of the morning, with her ruddy curling locks floating saucily around her. Perhaps, now that she has grown more sensible, she will joyfully accept the offer I made when she was a child: to go with me as my adopted daughter.--Daughter? That is not the right word; no longer the right word: she has blossomed into womanhood: I should not think of lifting her on my knee, as I did years ago. She has become too mature. And I am still too young to regard her only as a daughter.--Rather as a brother, her loving brother who rejoices in her beauty. No, it will not do. A short time ago her round arm brushed me (the German women go with bare arms); a fiery thrill darted through my veins. I can scarcely doubt it, I--- My feelings for her do not concern other people. I might at any rate first take her with me--and then adopt her? No matter what the legal form may be, I am determined to keep her near me always. I can no longer do without her charming presence; everything would grow dark and cold. Already I shiver at the thought of again living alone with the icy-hearted Herculanus. She has become my muse! A barbarian one, do you scoff? Aha, are these lines so barbaric? "Incarnate joy! Caressing bliss! O thou embodiment of sportive grace! How the Barbarian maid the fair ones of Latium hath vanquished! Bissula! Plebeian her name may sound in the ears of aliens: But to Ausonius it echoes with harmonies sweet and bewitching." CHAPTER XXIV. It is useless to conceal it from myself any longer, and what I admit to myself must also be confessed to you, my Paulus, my second self, at the same moment. Alas, I fear you read it long ago from these words in prose and verse. I beseech you not to shake your cool, cautious head as usual over your "too youthful" Ausonius: I hope my heart will throb warmly till it ceases to beat. I know all you will say--of course against it. For you would speak in favor only if you had seen her. Yet I rejoice that you are not here: I have no desire to be warned. True, it is one thing to toy with the sweet illusion within my own breast and to the friend who will keep my secret; and quite another to transfer it to practical reality. My thoughts are contradictory. I am fifty--ah no; fifty-two years old! But what happiness it will be for the young girl to share not only my wealth but the whole Latin civilization with me! She is a pagan. Pshaw! The baptismal water will no more wash away her charm than it has driven the pagan Muses from me. She can believe after baptism precisely what she believed before. And she shall offer sacrifices to golden Aphrodite and to Hymen!