All aglow with the ravishing prospect--her eager hopes converting the possible into the probable, and again, by a rapid change, the probable into the certain, the Greek stood spurning the needle work at her feet. Then glancing around, the whim seized upon her to assume, for a moment in advance, her coming stately dignity. At the side of the room, upon a slightly elevated platform, was a crimson lounge--Ænone's especial and proper seat. Over one arm of this lounge hung, in loose folds, a robe of purple velvet, with an embroidered fringe of pearls--a kind of cloak of state, usually worn by her upon the reception of ceremonious visits. To this lounge Leta strode, threw herself upon it, drew the velvet garment over her shoulders, so that the long folds fell down gracefully and swept the marble pavement at her feet, and there, half sitting, half reclining, assumed an attitude of courtly dignity, as though mistress of the palace. And it must be confessed that she well suited the place. With her lithe, graceful figure thrown into a position in which the gentle languor of unembarrassed leisure was mingled with the dignity of queenly state--with her burning eyes so tempered in their brilliancy that they seemed ready at the same instant to bid defiance to impertinent intrusion, and to bestow gracious condescension upon suppliant timidity--with every feature glowing with that proper pride which is not arrogance, and that proper kindliness which is not humility--there was probably in all Rome no noble matron who could as well adorn her chair of ceremony. Beside her, the true mistress of the place would have appeared as a timid child dismayed with unaccustomed honors; and in comparison, the empress herself might not fill her throne in the palace of the Cæsars with half the grace and dignity. Then, as she there sat, momentarily altering her attitude to correspond the better with her ideas of proper bearing, and gathering into newer and more pleasing folds the sweeping breadths of the velvet mantle, the door was slowly swung open, and there glided noiselessly in, clad in its neat and coarse tunic, the timid figure of her old lover Cleotos. For an instant they remained gazing at each other as though paralyzed. Cleotos--who had looked to see her in her simple white vestment as of old, and had expected at her first glance to rush to her arms, and there be allowed to pour forth his joy at again meeting her, never more to part--beheld with dismay this gorgeously arrayed and queenly figure. This could not be the Leta whom he had known, or, if so, how changed! Was this the customary attire of slaves in high-placed families? Or could it be the token of a guilty favoritism? His heart sank within him; and he stood nervously clinging against the door behind him, fearing to advance, lest, at the first step, some terrible truth, of which he had already seemed to feel the premonitions, might burst upon him.