“As to your wedding, I’m sorry I gave you my promise to stay away from it. I think that this recent notion of yours that the marriage of an ex-Vestal is an ill-omened occasion, like a funeral, is morbid and baseless. Every Vestal has a right to leave the order at the end of her term of service and to marry if she pleases. The right is indubitable. Nothing that is right is ill-omened. I think that an ex-Vestal’s wedding ought to be regarded precisely as the wedding of anybody else. The most I’ll concede is, that it might be likened to the wedding of a widow, considering her service as a sort of first marriage. That is my judgment, not merely as a man but as Chief Pontiff. “My impulse is to revoke my pledge and to do all I can to make your wedding a grand affair. But I’m too good a betting man to break a promise. Besides, though I impugn your arguments as an ex-Vestal, I respect your personal preference for a quiet wedding. I’ll not insist on being invited to the banquet, and, so far from taking part in the procession, I’ll not even peep at it down a side street. I’ll keep inside the Palace. “But I want you to release me from my promise in one small detail. I want to be present at Vocco’s to see you two break and eat the old-fashioned cake, and I want to be first to sign your marriage register. I promise to leave as soon as I have signed the register.” Brinnaria, of course, could not but acquiesce. “Good for you!” said the Emperor, “and thank you too. I’ll keep away from the procession, but that won’t make any difference in the throngs you’ll find along your route. They’ll jam the streets and you’ll have to plough your way through. No Emperor could ever call out more sight-seers than will the wedding of Brinnaria the water-carrier.” He then went out into the street which his escort blocked, and departed, accompanied by his coterie of boxers, wrestlers, swordsmen, jockeys and such-like, convoyed by a large and gorgeous retinue of pages, runners, guards nd lictors. Immediately after his departure Brinnaria said her farewells and set out for Nemestronia’s. Next morning, as she descended from her litter at Vocco’s door, a Vestal’s carriage drove up and Gargilia got out. “You’re surprised to see me at this hour,” she said, “and I don’t wonder.” When they were indoors and seated with Flexinna she explained: “We have been having a terrible night at the Atrium and the worst sort of luck this morning. That little fool of a Campia is the most complete cry-baby and the most homesick little wretch I ever saw or heard of. She has sobbed herself ill and screamed us all out of a night’s sleep. Terentia and Manlia were up half the night with her and she waked me and Causidiena.