Betty looked at the poor children pityingly as they stood huddled together, confused and frightened. It was dreadful to think of them being sold as though they were sheep or cows! But her attention was all at once distracted by a boy of about her own age, who, having passed quite close, all at once turned round and stopped. It was the first time that any one had _seen_ her, for up to this moment both she and Godmother had been invisible. But it was evident that, to the boy at least, this was no longer the case. He smiled, and walking towards her, said, “You are a stranger? You would like to see my father’s house?” He was a Roman boy, as Betty at once recognized, and strangely enough she did not feel it at all odd that she should understand his speech, though afterwards she knew it must be Latin. At the time, however, she wondered how he guessed that she was desperately anxious to go into one of the many Roman houses so beautifully set among orchards and gardens. “Yes, if you please,” was all she could find to say. “Come then,” said the boy, smiling again pleasantly, but paying no heed to Godmother. Betty turned to her, puzzled and uncertain, but Godmother only laughed. “Don’t trouble about finding me again. It will be all right. Go with him, and stay as long as you like. You’ll discover it’s not so long as you imagine.” Thus encouraged, Betty very willingly followed her guide. He was a handsome boy, dressed very much as the Roman nobleman on the bridge had been clothed, except that the cloak he wore over his tunic had a broad purple band round its edge. That, as she afterwards learnt from Godmother, being the usual dress for Roman boys, for it was not till they were grown up, that they wore the tunic without this purple border. “That is our villa,” he began presently when they came in sight of a long one-storied house surrounded by trees and shrubs. “My father has much land here, and many farms.” “Will you tell me your name?” asked Betty shyly. “My name is Lucius.... I will take you first straight through the house,” said the boy. By this time they had reached its entrance, and Betty caught a beautiful vision of rooms divided by pillars, each one opening into the next; of painted ceilings and walls, of coloured stone pavements, of couches with purple silk cushions upon them, and pedestals upon which statues stood. It was only a flashing glimpse she had of all this, and though she saw everything with the greatest distinctness, she was somehow conscious that none of it was actually _real_; that even Lucius was not really alive, even while she saw him as plainly as though he had been flesh and blood. Deep down in her mind, she knew that everything she saw and heard, was what had once existed but was over and done with long, long ago, and was only revived for a moment.