Completely as it was dominated by the enormous bulk of the Palace it yet looked very large, having three lofty stories. Inside it was both spacious and stately. Brinnaria was habituated to space and stateliness, for her father’s house had both, yet the Atrium of Vesta, as the House of the Vestals was officially denominated, impressed her as vast and splendid. That this immense and magnificent building was to be her home gave her sense of her own importance that thrilled her through and through. Its numerous retinue of deft and obsequious maid-servants added to this impression. Brinnaria’s personal attendants, entirely at her beck and call and serving her alone, made up a considerable retinue by themselves. She found herself, like each of the other Vestals, served by a special waitress at table, by a waitress who had nothing to do but look after her wants. Then she had a sort of maid-of-honor, who had no duties except to act as companion, make herself agreeable, read aloud, if requested, accompany her on her outings and help to pass her leisure pleasantly. As she was a mere child in years she had a sort of governess to instruct her in all those subjects in which a Roman girl of good family was generally given lessons: correct reading; a smattering of mathematics, about equivalent to the simple arithmetic of our days; some knowledge of literature; a steady and efficient drill in reading and talking Greek; instrumental music, similar to the guitar-playing of modern times, and embroidery. She had a personal maid to bathe her, arrange her hair and otherwise make her comfortable; also a special maid to attend to her private apartment, which included what we would call a sitting-room, a tiny bedroom, and a large bath-room. The largest room was used mostly as a school-room for lessons with her instructress. Outside the Atrium Brinnaria had her private stable, her carriages, her coachman and ostlers, and her lictor, the red-cloaked runner, who preceded her carriage, announced its coming and cleared the way for it through the crowds of foot-passengers who thronged the streets of Rome. Life in the Atrium was austere and formal, but in no respect ascetic. The austerities extended only to attire and behavior. The decorations of the courtyard, of the corridors and stairs, of the two hundred rooms, were bewilderingly varied and overpoweringly gorgeous. Every appointment of the Atrium was luxurious to the last degree; the furnishings were beautiful and precious, every object a work of art; the bathrooms cunningly devised for comfort, the beds deep and soft, scarcely less so the sofas on which the Vestals reclined at their meals, the table service of exquisite glass-ware and elaborately chased silver, the food abundant and including every delicacy and rarity most appetizing and enjoyable.