From the entrance a straight path, strewn with white sand, led through the wide-spreading garden, between tall ilices and yews, which according to the long ruling fashion had been cut into all kinds of geometrical figures--a taste, or rather want of taste, which the Rococo did not invent, but only newly borrowed from the gardens of the Imperators. Statues were placed at regular intervals in the space between the garden gate and the entrance to the dwelling-house: nymphs, a Flora, a satyr, a Mercury--bad work in plaster; the stout Crispus made them by the dozen in his workshop on the Vulcan market-place in Juvavum; and he sold them cheap: for the times were not good for _men_, and were bad for gods and demi-gods; but these were all gifts, for Crispus was the father's brother of the young householder. From the entrance of the garden, echoing from the stone wall of the enclosure, there sounded several strokes of a hammer, only lightly, for they were given carefully by an artist-hand; they seemed to be the last improving, finishing efforts of a master. Now the hammerer sprang up; he had been kneeling just within the entrance, near to which, standing upright against each other, were some dozen yet unworked marble slabs, which pointed out the dwelling of a stone-mason. He stuck the little hammer into the leather belt which fastened the skin apron over his blue tunic, shook from a little oil-flask a few drops on a woollen cloth, rubbed therewith the marble till it was smooth as a mirror, turned his head aside, as a bird will that wishes to look closely at anything, and then, nodding well pleased, read from the slab at the entrance: "Yes, yes! here dwells happiness; _my_ happiness, _our_ happiness: so long as my Felicitas dwells here--happy and making happy. May misfortune never step over this threshold: banished by the adage, may every bad spirit Halt! Now is the house beautifully finished by this inscription. But where is she, then? She must see it and praise me. Felicitas," cried he, turning towards the house, "come then!" He wiped the sweat from his brow, and stood upright--a supple, youthful form, slender, not above the middle height, not unlike the Mercury of the garden, whose proportions Crispus had formed according to old tradition; dark-brown hair, in short curls, covered almost like a cap his round head; under large eyebrows, two dark eyes laughed pleasantly on the world; the naked feet and arms showed a fine shape, but little strength; only in the right arm powerful muscles raised themselves; the brown skin apron was sprinkled white with marble dust, he shook it off, and cried again louder, "Felicitas!"