Withal she was feminine in her tastes, spent much time on embroidery and was justly proud of her complex and beautiful productions in this womanly art. She overcame her disabilities to a great extent and, with no lack of conveyances, became a figure almost as well-known in oman society as Nemestronia herself. As she had an accommodating disposition, an excellent appetite and a witty tongue, she was a welcome guest at banquets and went about a great deal. Also she entertained lavishly. She survived the pestilence and, like so many of the remnants of the nobility, found herself solitary and enormously wealthy. Her vast estates she managed herself and she knew to a sesterce the value of every piece of property, the justifiable expenses of maintaining each, and the income each should yield. Self-indulgent as she was and moreover an inveterate gambler, she grew richer every year. Like all childless Romans of independent means she was the object of unblushing and overwhelming attentions from countless legacy cadgers. She enjoyed the game, accepted everything offered in the way of gifts, services or invitations, and, moreover, played up to it, for she was forever destroying her last will and making a new one. Each was read aloud to a concourse of expectant and envious legatees. Each specified scores of legacies of no despicable amount, and yet more numerous sops to numerous acquaintances. In every will Calvaster, her nearest relative and favorite grandnephew, was named as chief legatee. She kept on making wills, and, what was more, she kept on living. Naturally her wealth, her eccentricities, her amazing healthiness and her obstinate vitality were subjects of general remark by all the gossips of the capital. One night, an hour or two after midnight, she was seized with violent internal pains, and, in spite of the ministrations of her private physician, died before dawn. In Rome any sudden death was likely to be attributed to poison. In her case the indications, from the Roman point of view, all converged on the inference that she had been poisoned. No-one questioned the conclusion.