For with a sly glance at each other the two girls had mutually looked at the lively little princess’s manifestly artificial complexion which was trickling away in little runnels down her cheeks.
“I wonder what she is thinking about?” she interposed hastily, to turn away the merry girls’ attention from herself, and glancing across towards the lady Elissa.
“Who?” said Cleandra.
“Why, Elissa, of course,” replied that lady’s aunt. “Canst thou not see that she hath been in a brown study for ever so long? She is no more thinking of the fish than I am; her thoughts are miles and miles away. But just notice how pretty the ruddy tints are in her dark hair, lighted up like that by the afternoon sun.”
“Perhaps she is thinking of affairs of State,” answered Cleandra, “and whether she is to put us in that black hole or no.”
“Or, perhaps,” said Melania with a grain of malice, “and far more likely, she is thinking of the siege of Saguntum and whether a certain young officer of cavalry called Maharbal will ever come back from the war again to do what we girls cannot hope to do, that is cheer her in her solitude. I really should like to go and disturb her, she reminds me so of her namesake Dido—Elissa is Hebrew for Dido, thou knowest, Lady Cœcilia—mourning on the heights of Carthage for her lost Æneas.”
“I wonder what she sees in that Maharbal,” continued Melania, in a tone of pique; “a great big mountain of a hobbledehoy, that’s what I call him, and merely a prefect of the Numidian cavalry, too. Such assurance on his part to be always making love to her! I wonder that Hannibal allows it—a mere nobody!”
“A mere nobody! a hobbledehoy! nonsense!” said the princess, “thou’rt jealous, Melania, because he never looks at thee. Why, he is own nephew to Syphax, King of Massaesyllia, and cousin to the powerful Massinissa, King of Massyllia, both great Libyan princes.”
“Mere vassals of Carthage! and the last named not very trustworthy,” replied the other interrupting.
“Well then,” gabbled on the princess, “look at his strength, a hobbledehoy indeed; Maharbal is a regular Hercules, and hath a beautiful face just like the celebrated Hermes of Praxiteles. I think Elissa will be a very lucky girl if she weds a magnificent fellow like that; she will be the mother of a race of giants.”