"I can easily believe it: she had better ones herself, you said just now."
"But the descriptions of the vineyards and villas along the river. And when I told her that in my home on the Garumna were far, far handsomer and richer houses, full of marble, gold, bronze, and ivory, adorned with brightly painted walls and mosaics; that I myself owned the most beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens full of leaping water, foreign stags and deer, and birds with sweet songs or brilliant plumage; when I spoke of the deep blue of the sky and the golden light of the sun in the glorious land of Aquitania where almost perpetual summer reigned, she could not hear enough in prose and verse of the splendor of our country and the magnificence and art of our life. Once she clapped her little hands in surprise and delight, exclaiming: 'Oh, father, I should like to see that too. Just one day!' But I had grown so fond of the gay, sweet child that, with a thrill of joy at the thought, I answered: 'Come, my little daughter, not for a day--forever. If your guardian will consent, I will adopt you as my child and take you to Burdigala. How gladly my wife will welcome you! My daughters will treat you as a dear sister. You shall become a Roman maiden!'
"But, like a frightened deer, she sprang from my lap, ran off, leaped into her boat, rowed swiftly across the lake, and did not return for many days. I was full of anxiety lest I had driven her away forever. At last--it was a time of complete peace--I had myself rowed across the lake to its northern shore and guided to her hut in the forest. But she had scarcely caught sight of me when, with a loud cry of terror, she climbed into a huge oak as nimbly as a woodpecker and hid herself among the branches. She would not come down again until I had solemnly promised, in the presence of her uncle and her grandmother, not to take her away and never even to say a word about it: 'For,' she said, with tears in her eyes, 'in that hot country I should die of homesickness for my own family, the neighbors, nay, even for the mountain, the meadow, and lake, like the forest flowers transplanted from the marshy soil into dry sand.'"
"A sensible child," remarked the Tribune thoughtfully, stroking his beautiful brown beard. "So she is pretty?"
"I think so!" cried Herculanus: the voice sounded almost savage.
"Why, nephew, you have never seen her."
"But you have described her to us often enough! I could paint her, with her bright red locks."
"And her name is Bissula?" Saturninus added.
"Yes, 'the little one,'" replied Ausonius, "for she is very slender and delicate of limb. I then saw her regularly again, but kept my promise not to ask her to go with me. When I bade her farewell, she wept with a child's loving tears. 'With you,' she said 'I part from a warm, bright, beautiful world, into which, as it were, I peeped, standing on tiptoe, over a curtain.'
"Recently, on reaching Vindonissa--during my journey through the country I had thought much of the charming child--I saw her before me in a dream the first night, encircled by a poisonous serpent. Her eyes were raised to mine, imploring help, I woke with a cry, and my heart grew heavy at the thought of what might befall the lovely girl--for she must have become beautiful--if our cohorts bring all the horrors of war into the forests along the shore of the lake. And I confess, it was principally to see that child again--perhaps to protect her until the war should be over--that I entreated the Emperor to permit me to join this expedition."