"Not one seemed to me better than utterly bad."
"And your pretty face is to be handed down to posterity in five-fold deformity?"
"Ah! no—I had them all destroyed."
"That was very good of them!" cried Pollux, eagerly. Then turning with a very simple gesture to the bust before him he said: "Hapless clay, if the lovely lady whom thou art destined to resemble will not sacrifice the chaos of her curls, thy fate will undoubtedly be that of thy predecessors."
The sleeping matron was roused by this speech. "You were speaking," she said, "of the broken busts of Balbilla?"
"Yes," replied the poetess.
"And perhaps this one may follow them," sighed Claudia. "Do you know what lies before you in that case?"
"No, what?"
"This young lady knows something of your art."
"I learnt to knead clay a little of Aristaeus," interrupted Balbilla.