At this pleasant hour, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, and looking upon this pleasant scene, a group of females were collected, under the rustic colonnade of Italian marble, engaged in some of those light toils, which in feminine hands are so graceful. The foremost of these, seated apart somewhat from the others, were the stately and still beautiful Hortensia, and her lovely daughter, both of them employed in twirling the soft threads from the merrily revolving spindle, into large osier baskets; and the elder lady, glancing at times toward the knot of slave girls, as if to see that they performed their light tasks; and at times, if their mirth waxed too loud, checking it by a gesture of her elevated finger. A little while before, Julia had been singing in her sweet low voice, one of those favorite old ballads, which were so much prized by the Romans, and to which Livy is probably so much indebted for the redundant imagery of his "pictured page," commemorative of the deeds and virtues of the Old Houses. But, as her lay came to its end, her eye had fallen on the broad blood-red disc of the descending day-god, and had followed him upon his downward path, until he was lost to view, among the tangled coppices that fringed the brow of the western hill. Her hands dropped listlessly into her lap, releasing the snow-white thread, which they had drawn out so daintily; and keeping her eyes still fixed steadily on the point where he had disappeared, she gave vent to her feelings in a long-drawn ’heigho!’ in every language, and in all times, expression of sentimental sadness. "Wherefore so sad a sigh, my Julia?" asked Hortensia, gazing affectionately at the saddened brow of the fair girl—"methinks! there is nothing very melancholy here; nothing that should call forth repining." "See, see Hortensia, how he sinks like a dying warrior, amid those sanguine clouds," cried the girl, pointing to the great orb of the sun, just as its last limb was disappearing. "And into a couch of bays and myrtles, like that warrior, when his duty is done, his fame won!" exclaimed Hortensia, throwing her arm abroad enthusiastically; and truly the hill-side, behind which he was lost to view, was feathered thick with the shrubs of which she spoke—"methinks! there is nought for which to sigh in such a setting, either of the sun, or the hero!" "But see, how dark and gloomy he has left all behind him!—the river which was golden but now, while he smiled upon it, now that he is gone, is leaden." "But he shall rise again to-morrow, brighter and yet more glorious; and yet more gloriously shall the stream blaze back his rising than his setting lustre." "Alas! alas! Hortensia!" "Wherefore, alas, my Julia?"