We find among them different shades of the same color, several reds, for instance, as sinopis, cinnabar, and others. This sort of decoration has caused some persons to call this the house of a color-seller--a conjecture entirely at variance with the luxury and elegance which reign in it. The floor was of red cement, with bits of white marble imbedded in it. The altar in the atrium and the little oratory in the left-hand ala belong to the worship of the Lares _domestici_ or _familiares_, as is indicated by the paintings found in the false doorway, but now removed. They consisted of a serpent below and a group of four figures above, employed in celebrating a sacrifice to these gods. In the centre is a tripod, into which a priest, his head covered, is pouring the contents of a patera. On each side are two young men, dressed alike, apparently in the prætexta; at least their robes are white, and there is a double red stripe down the front of their tunics, and a red drapery is thrown over the shoulders of each. In one hand each holds a patera; in the other each holds aloft a cow's horn perforated at the small end, through which a stream is spouting into the patera at a considerable distance. This, though an inconvenient, seems to have been a common drinking-vessel. The method of using it has already been described. In the background is a man playing on the double flute. The worship of the Lares was thus publicly represented, and their images were exposed to view, that all persons might have an opportunity of saluting them and invoking prosperity on the house. Noble families had also a place of domestic worship (_adytum_ or _penetrale_) in the most retired part of their mansions, where their most valuable records and hereditary memorials were preserved. The worship of these little deities (_Dii minuti_, or _patellarii_) was universally popular, partly perhaps on account of its economical nature, for they seem to have been satisfied with anything that came to hand, partly perhaps from a sort of feeling of good fellowship in them and towards them, like that connected with the Brownies and Cluricaunes, and other household goblins of northern extraction.