Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whose face, once lovely, was still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful female child, each dressed in a black _ricinium_,[2] or mourning robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and grievously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love, and now and again anguish. Opposite to them, with his back to the horses, wearing a sort of dark _lacerna_, or thin, light great-coat, of costly material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed. The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put both hands to his face, and, leaning his head forward, suffered tears to flow silently through his fingers. The _lacerna_ which he wore was fastened at the breast by two _fibulæ_, or clasps of silver, and girt round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his left side, was secured within its black scabbard an unfamiliar, outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the blade between his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds, in front of his chest. The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,[3] even out of doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the _penula_ used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword we have described the youth had flung a sort of _petasus_, or deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side, not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was unconscious. "Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child! Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past. The gods have taken your father, after men had taken his and your inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your parents too, in times past--did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are you not to survive me also? Perhaps soon." With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed: