“You must have heard the story of Tuccia, the Vestal,” Brinnaria wondered, wide-eyed. “She lived ages ago, before Hannibal invaded Italy, when everything was different. They said she was bad and she said it was a lie and they said she could not prove it was a lie and she said she could. She said if she was all she ought to be the Goddess would show it by answering her prayer. And she took a sieve and walked down to the river, right by the end of the Sublician bridge, where the stairs are on the right-hand side. And the five other Vestals, and the flamens, and all the priests, and the Pontifex, and the consuls went with her. And she stood on the lowest step with her toes in the water and prayed out loud to the Goddess to help her and show that she had told the truth and then she stooped over and dipped up water with her sacrificing ladle and poured it into the sieve and it didn’t run through, and she dipped up more and more until the sieve was half full of water, as if it had been a pan. And then she hung her ladle at her girdle-hook and took the sieve in both hands and carried the water all the way to the temple. And everybody said that that proved that she had told the truth. “That’s the story. Had you ever heard it?” “Yes, little lady,” Truttidius said, “I have heard it.” “What I want to know,” Brinnaria pursued, “is this: Is it a made-up story or is it a true story?” “Little lady,” spoke Truttidius, “it is impious to doubt the truth of pious stories handed down from days of old.” “That isn’t answering my question,” said the practical Brinnaria. “What I want you to tell me is to say right out plain do you believe it. Did anybody really ever carry water in a sieve?” “You must remember, dear little lady,” the sieve-maker said, “that she was a most holy priestess, most pleasing in the eyes of her Goddess, that she was in dire straits and that she prayed to the Goddess to aid her. The Goddess helped her votary; the gods can do all things.” “The gods can do all things,” Brinnaria echoed, her eyes flashing, “but the gods don’t do all things, not even for their favorites. There are lots and lots of things no god ever did for any votary or ever will. What I want to know is this: Is carrying water in a sieve one of the things the gods not only can do but do do? Did anybody ever carry water in a sieve truly?” Truttidius smiled, his wrinkles doubling and quadrupling till his face was all a network of tiny folds of hard, dry skin. He put down his work and regarded his guest, his face serious after the fading of his brief smile. The soft-footed sandalled throng that packed the narrow street shuffled and padded by unnoticed. No customer interrupted them. They might have been alone in a Sibyl’s cell on a mountain side.