'Decius! we are here--
and one with us whom you know not. Hush! Stifle your curiosity till
to-morrow. Let them pass.'
So had the day gone by, and not once had he looked upon the face of
Veranilda.
He saw her early on the morrow. Aurelia, though the whole villa was
now at her command, chose still to inhabit the house of Proba; and
thither, when the day was yet young, she summoned Basil. The room in
which she sat was hung with pictured tapestry, representing Christ
and the Apostles; crude work, but such as had pleased Faltonia
Proba, whose pious muse inspired her to utter the Gospel in a
Virgilian canto. And at Aurelia's side, bending over a piece of
delicate needlework, sat the Gothic maiden, clad in white, her
flaxen hair, loosely held with silk, falling behind her shoulders,
shadowing her forehead, and half hiding the little ears. At Basil's
entrance she did not look up; at the first sound of his voice she
bent her head yet lower, and only when he directly addressed her,
asking, with all the gentleness his lips could command, whether the
journey had left much fatigue, did she show for a moment her watchet
eyes, answering few words with rare sweetness.
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