BRINNARIA found that, with Almo definitely and permanently out of the way, she did not worry about Calvaster. She also found that she did not worry about Almo and that her glimpse of him had rather calmed her feelings. She confessed as much to Aurelius when she had a third audience with him before he left for the Rhine frontier, and she thanked him for his insistence. With her mind at peace Brinnaria settled more and more into the routine of her life and enjoyed it more and more. She came to feel keenly the spiritual significance of every detail of the ritual observances in which she took part. Besides the maintenance of the sacred fire, the Vestals had many obligatory duties. Every sacrifice of the Roman public worship involved the sprinkling of the sacred meal upon the head of the victim, if a live animal was offered, or upon the fire, if the sacrifice was bloodless. Early in each ceremony one of the small boys assisting the priest carried around to all the participants in the act of worship a maple-wood box containing the holy meal; from it each worshipper ladled a small portion into the palm of his right hand; at a specified point in the course of the ceremonial each participant sprinkled the meal as prescribed. The holy meal was made of very coarsely ground wheat, a sort of grits, salted and toasted. It was prepared by the Vestals according to immemorial custom. They were supplied with a sufficient quantity of heads of wheat, the best of the produce of two of their estates, one near Caere, the other near Lanuvium. These wheat ears were packed in baskets and stored on the farms in dry, airy barns. There they were kept drying and hardening their grains until the next spring. Then the allotted baskets were brought into Rome. On the seventh of May, after a ceremonial of prayer, the three elder Vestals began going over these wheat-ears, sorting out those entirely perfect, and placing them in larger baskets shaped like the big earthen jars in which the Romans commonly tored wheat, olives, oil, wine and other similar supplies. On the next day the wheat from the first day’s selection of ears was separated from the straw, beards and chaff, was roasted and coarsely ground. The resultant groats were then put away in great earthen jars in the outer storeroom of the temple. On the third day they again selected wheat ears, on the fourth they again prepared wheat-grits, and so on alternately for eight days. By the evening of the eighth day they had stored enough groats to make the sacred meal for one year’s ceremonies of the entire Roman ritual.