'What, are you so great a stranger in Italy as not to know him!' replied the other, a lively girl of small delicate form, who fidgeted with persevering restlessness on her couch, and seemed incapable of giving an instant's steady attention to any of the objects around her. 'By all the saints, martyrs, and relics of my uncle the bishop!' 'Hush! You should not swear!' 'Not swear! Why, I am making a new collection of oaths, intended solely for ladies' use! I intend to set the fashion of swearing by them myself!' 'But answer my question, I beseech you! Will you never learn to talk on one subject at a time?' 'Your question--ah, your question! It was about the Goths?' 'No, no! It was about that man who is incessantly writing, and will look at nobody. He is almost as provoking as Camilla herself!' 'Don't frown so! That man, as you call him, is the senator Vetranio.' The lady started. It was evident that Vetranio had a reputation. 'Yes!' continued the lively Camilla, 'that is the accomplished Vetranio; but he will be no favourite of yours, for he sometimes swears--swears by the ancient gods, too, which is forbidden!' 'He is handsome.' 'Handsome! he is beautiful! Not a woman in Italy but is languishing for him!' 'I have heard that he is clever.' 'Who has not? He is the author of some of the most celebrated sauces of the age. Cooks of all nations worship him as an oracle. Then he writes poetry, and composes music, and paints pictures! And as for philosophy--he talks it better than my uncle the bishop!' 'Is he rich?' 'Ah! my uncle the bishop!--I must tell you how I helped Vetranio to make a satire on him! When I was staying with him at Rome, I used often to see a woman in a veil taken across the garden to his study; so, to perplex him, I asked him who she was. And he frowned and stammered, and said at first that I was disrespectful; but he told me afterwards that she was an Arian whom he was labouring to convert. So I thought I should like to see how this conversion went on, and I hid myself behind a bookcase. But it is a profound secret; I tell it you in confidence.' 'I don't care to know it. Tell me about Vetranio.' 'How ill-natured you are! Oh! I shall never forget how we laughed when I told Vetranio what I had seen. He took up his writing materials, and made the satire immediately. The next day all Rome heard of it. My uncle was speechless with rage! I believe he suspected me; but he gave up converting the Arian lady, and--' 'I ask you again--Is Vetranio rich?' 'Half Sicily is his. He has immense estates in Africa, olive-grounds in Syria, and corn-fields in Gaul. I was present at an entertainment he gave at his villa in Sicily. He fitted up one of his vessels from the descriptions of the furnishing of Cleopatra's galley, and made his slaves swim after us as attendant Tritons. Oh! it was magnificent!' 'I should like to know him.'