the sympathies and ties of time.  Silently we left the temple, and I was about to ask her where she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visit her, when a youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblance to her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fane, took her by the hand.  She turned round and bade me farewell.  The crowd separated us:  I saw her no more.  On reaching my home I found letters, which obliged me to set out for Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigation concerning my inheritance.  When that suit was happily over, I repaired once more to Neapolis; I instituted inquiries throughout the whole city, I could discover no clue of my lost countrywoman, and, hoping to lose in gaiety all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to plunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii.  This is all my history.  I do not love; but I remember and regret.’

As Clodius was about to reply, a slow and stately step approached them, and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles, each turned, and each recognized the new-comer.

It was a man who had scarcely reached his fortieth year, of tall stature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame.  His skin, dark and bronzed, betrayed his Eastern origin; and his features had something Greek in their outline (especially in the chin, the lip, and the brow), save that the nose was somewhat raised and aquiline; and the bones, hard and visible, forbade that fleshy and waving contour which on the Grecian physiognomy preserved even in manhood the round and beautiful curves of youth.  His eyes, large and black as the deepest night, shone with no varying and uncertain lustre.  A deep, thoughtful, and half-melancholy calm seemed unalterably fixed in their majestic and commanding gaze.  His step and mien were peculiarly sedate and lofty, and something foreign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added to the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form.  Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the evil eye.

‘The scene must, indeed, be beautiful,’ said Arbaces, with a cold though courteous smile, ’which draws the gay Clodius, and Glaucus the all admired, from the crowded thoroughfares of the city.’

‘Is Nature ordinarily so unattractive?’ asked the Greek.

‘To the dissipated—­yes.’

’An austere reply, but scarcely a wise one.  Pleasure delights in contrasts; it is from dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, and from solitude dissipation.’