[13] Every Roman had a praenomen, or “Christian name”; also a gentile name of the gens or clan to which he belonged; and commonly in addition a cognomen, usually an epithet descriptive of some personal peculiarity of an ancestor, which had fastened itself upon the immediate descendants of that ancestor.  The Livii Drusi were among the noblest of the Roman houses.

  [14] Died in 91 B.C.

  [15] In 54 B.C.

The son and the daughter remained.  Quintus Drusus had had kindly guardians; he had been sent for four years to the “University” at Athens; had studied rhetoric and philosophy; and now he was back with his career before him,—­master of himself, of a goodly fortune, of a noble inheritance of high-born ancestry.  And he was to marry Cornelia.  No thought of thwarting his father’s mandate crossed his mind; he was bound by the decree of the dead.  He had not seen his betrothed for four years.  He remembered her as a bright-eyed, merry little girl, who had an arch way of making all to mind her.  But he remembered too, that her mother was a vapid lady of fashion, that her uncle and guardian was Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, Consul-elect,[16] a man of little refinement or character.  And four years were long enough to mar a young girl’s life.  What would she be like?  What had time made of her?  The curiosity—­we will not call it passion—­was overpowering.  Pure “love” was seldom recognized as such by the age.  When the carriage reached a spot where two roads forked, leading to adjacent estates, Drusus alighted.

  [16] The two Roman consuls were magistrates of the highest rank, and
  were chosen each year by the people.

“Is her ladyship Cornelia at the villa of the Lentuli?” was his demand of a gardener who was trimming a hedge along the way.

“Ah!  Master Drusus,” cried the fellow, dropping his sickle in delight.  “Joy to see you!  Yes, she is in the grove by the villa; by the great cypress you know so well.  But how you have changed, sir—­”

But Drusus was off.  The path was familiar.  Through the trees he caught glimpses of the stately mazes of colonnades of the Lentulan villa, surrounded by its artificially arranged gardens, and its wide stretches of lawn and orchard.  The grove had been his playground.  Here was the oak under which Cornelia and he had gathered acorns.  The remnants of the little brush house they had built still survived.  His step quickened.  He heard the rush of the little stream that wound through the grove.  Then he saw ahead of him a fern thicket, and the brook flashing its water beyond.  In his recollection a bridge had here crossed the streamlet.  It had been removed.  Just across, swayed the huge cypress.  Drusus stepped forward.  At last!  He pushed carefully through the thicket, making only a little noise, and glanced across the brook.