"You are wrong for once, good friend," said Paullus, with a well-pleased smile. "Julia is absent from the city also. She and Hortensia are on a visit to their farm, at the foot of Mount Algidus. I have not seen them, since my return from Præneste."
"Your slaves, I trow, know every mile-stone by this time, on the via Labicana! Do you write to her daily?"
"Not so, indeed, Aristius;" he replied. "We are too long betrothed, and too confident, each in the good faith of the other, to think it needful to kill my poor slaves in bearing amatory billets."
"You are wise, Paullus, as you are true, and will, I hope, be happy lovers!"
"The Gods grant it!" replied Paullus.
"Do they return shortly? It is long since I have visited Hortensia. She would do justly to refuse me admittance when next I go to salute her."
"Not until after the next market day. But here I must leave you; I am going to Natta's shop, in the Argiletum."
"To purchase books? Ha! or to the tailor's? the last, I presume, gay bridegroom—there are, you know, two Nattas."
"Natta, the bookseller, is my man. But I go thither, not as a buyer, but to meet a friend, Fabius Sanga."
"A very wise and virtuous Roman," replied the other, stopping at the corner of the street Argiletum, "but tarry a moment; when shall we meet again? I am going down to the hippodrome, can you not join me there, when you have finished your business with Sanga?"