“Oh! what shall we do?” wailed Meffia, “what shall we do?”
“Do?” snarled Brinnaria. “It’s plain enough what you have to do. Go to your room, go to bed and go’ to sleep, stay asleep, keep your mouth shut, say nothing, pretend you woke me at midnight, pretend you had nothing to do with the fire going out, pretend you know nothing about it, keep your face straight, keep mum, leave the rest to me!”
“But,” wailed Meffia, “if they think you let the fire go out you’ll be scourged for it.”
“Well,” snapped Brinnaria, “what’s that to you? Go to bed.”
“But,” Meffia insisted, “I let it go out. I ought to take the blame, not you. I ought to be scourged with you.”
“You insufferable little idiot,” Brinnaria hurled at her, “you never could stand a flogging, you’d die of it most likely. To a certainty you’d be ill, and have to be sent off to be nursed and kept away for a month or more to recover. I won’t have Causidiena worried with any such performances. And as sure as the fire is out, you’d behave like the poor creature you are. You’d scream and howl and faint and shame us all.
“No flogging of you if I can help it!
“Now, go to bed!”
“But,” protested Meffia, “why need either of us be flogged? I have tinder and flint and steel in my room. We could light the fire and no one ever know it.”
“You imbecile child! You silly baby! You wicked, horrible, sacrilegious girl!” Brinnaria stormed. “You irreligious, atheistical, blasphemous wretch! To save your hide you’d desecrate the temple, pollute the Altar, anger Vesta, make all our prayers in vain, bring down curses without count on Rome and all of us. Be silent! Don’t you dare to speak another word! Off to bed with you!”