“Nor can I ever grow into the nearly worn out victim of pleasure, still less the sorrowful, heavy-hearted priestess, whose service has lost its charm. Nay, for the twenty years I may spend here my life shall at least be happier than that of my poor mother, who died, as some have said, by poison, administered by a slave whom she had hated. Yet, how beautiful she was in the atrium at Verulam, with Ebba--dear Ebba--standing at her side. I can see her now, toying with her lovely hair, when Ebba had plaited into the tresses the gold ornaments and arranged the long violet ribbons with their gold fringe. Poor Ebba, and dear Casca! Shall I ever see them again?” This desultory train of thought flowed on during the watches of the short night. For the summer morning of the ninth of June soon broke over the hills, and touched the Forum and the Temple, and the façades of the Imperial Palace, and the long vista of stately figures on the Appian Way, with a soft rosy light. The day of the great festival dawned in exquisite beauty, and everyone within the precincts of the Temple and the House of the Vestals was astir. But the great festival did not attract so much attention as in former years. Even in the early days of her own priesthood, Terentia Rufilla remembered how far more numerous were the applications from noble houses for a place in the procession through the streets of Rome. Nevertheless, the effect was sufficiently imposing, as the long line flowed past the spectators, with all the garlands and crowns fluttering gently in the summer air. The children came first--sweet grave-eyed little maidens--with offerings in their hands for the altar of Jupiter Pistor, which was erected expressly for the occasion. Then came the fully-consecrated vestals, barefooted, in their flowing robes, which became them so well. Conspicuous amongst these was Hyacintha Severa. She carried the folds of her large purple mantle with wonderful grace over her arm, and her long white robe flowing beneath it to her feet, showed the outline of her beautifully-proportioned figure to the greatest advantage. The close covering on her head, which was to some women far from becoming, seemed only to enhance the beauty of her slender throat, upon which her head was set like a flower upon a stalk. Long ribbons floated at the back, and added to the effect of the picture, of which the recent discoveries of the figures in the Vestals’ House, which the sculptors of those days delighted to perpetuate in marble, have given us some faint idea. But no sculptor or painter could perpetuate the grave happiness which was shed, like the soft halo of a summer night upon a lovely landscape, over the face of Hyacintha Severa.