They had now advanced far into August—­the next month their marriage was fixed, and the threshold of Glaucus was already wreathed with garlands; and nightly, by the door of Ione, he poured forth the rich libations.  He existed no longer for his gay companions; he was ever with Ione.  In the mornings they beguiled the sun with music:  in the evenings they forsook the crowded haunts of the gay for excursions on the water, or along the fertile and vine-clad plains that lay beneath the fatal mount of Vesuvius.  The earth shook no more; the lively Pompeians forgot even that there had gone forth so terrible a warning of their approaching doom.  Glaucus imagined that convulsion, in the vanity of his heathen religion, an especial interposition of the gods, less in behalf of his own safety than that of Ione.  He offered up the sacrifices of gratitude at the temples of his faith; and even the altar of Isis was covered with his votive garlands—­as to the prodigy of the animated marble, he blushed at the effect it had produced on him.  He believed it, indeed, to have been wrought by the magic of man; but the result convinced him that it betokened not the anger of a goddess.

Of Arbaces, they heard only that he still lived; stretched on the bed of suffering, he recovered slowly from the effect of the shock he had sustained—­he left the lovers unmolested—­but it was only to brood over the hour and the method of revenge.

Alike in their mornings at the house of Ione, and in their evening excursions, Nydia was usually their constant, and often their sole companion.  They did not guess the secret fires which consumed her—­the abrupt freedom with which she mingled in their conversation—­her capricious and often her peevish moods found ready indulgence in the recollection of the service they owed her, and their compassion for her affliction.  They felt an interest in her, perhaps the greater and more affectionate from the very strangeness and waywardness of her nature, her singular alternations of passion and softness—­the mixture of ignorance and genius—­of delicacy and rudeness—­of the quick humors of the child, and the proud calmness of the woman.  Although she refused to accept of freedom, she was constantly suffered to be free; she went where she listed; no curb was put either on her words or actions; they felt for one so darkly fated, and so susceptible of every wound, the same pitying and compliant indulgence the mother feels for a spoiled and sickly child—­dreading to impose authority, even where they imagined it for her benefit.  She availed herself of this license by refusing the companionship of the slave whom they wished to attend her.  With the slender staff by which she guided her steps, she went now, as in her former unprotected state, along the populous streets:  it was almost miraculous to perceive how quickly and how dexterously she threaded every crowd, avoiding every danger, and could find her benighted way through