“You are just like-my sweet Erotion![382] She was not so pretty as you are, to be sure, nor so elegant, but her eyes were like yours, and she was just as bright, and had the same love for the garden and for house-keeping.--Ah! and such a good heart! How often have I dreamed of future happiness for her when she has come, tired out with play, and sat on my lap and laid her head on my breast. Then she would go to sleep, and I would sing some old song, and sit dreaming and hoping till darkness fell. But the gods would not have it so! A handful of ashes in a marble urn is all that is left me of my sweet little girl.” She ceased speaking, and wiped her kind, honest eyes with the back of her hand. Lucilia gazed thoughtfully at the ground. “It is a long time since,” Fabulla added presently. “Twenty-two years next March; but every now and then a feeling comes over me, as if I had lost the dear child only yesterday.” “Poor mother!” sighed Lucilia. Fabulla affectionately stroked her thick, waving hair. “Do not mind me!” she said; “such dismal reflections do not suit well with the gaiety of youth.” “Mirth and sadness dwell side by side,” replied Lucilia, “and to enjoy what is pleasant and endure what is sorrowful is the only sensible way.” Then they went on between the box-hedged garden-beds. The two couples meanwhile had wandered apart. Quintus and Cornelia were sitting at the farthest side of the orchard, on a rough stone bench in the deepest shade of the fruit trees, while Aurelius and Claudia remained meditatively pacing up and down the main walk. “How happy I feel!” said Cornelia. “Quintus, my dear love, what more has the world to offer us? If it will only leave us undisturbed, so that we may enjoy the gifts of the gods in peace! But you are very silent, my dearest; must I wake you from your dreams with a kiss? Has happiness struck you dumb? Only think--before the year is out I shall be your wife! Yes, your wife; and I may call you my own forever. I need never give you up again, as I must now, when every hour of happiness ends in a parting.” She clung fondly to him, and looked into his face with radiant devotion. Her eyes glowed with feeling, and the fair marble of her throat and arms gleamed so softly bright, that Quintus, overcome by the inspiration of the moment, clasped her passionately in his arms, and their lips met in a long and eager kiss.