The different persons occupying it presented but little evidence of health and strength in their countenances, to contrast them in appearance with the wounded girl; all had undergone the wasting visitation of the famine, and all were pale and languid, like her.

A strange, indescribable harmony prevailed over the scene.

Even the calmness of absorbing expectation and trembling hope, expressed in the demeanour of Numerian, seemed reflected in the actions of those around him, in the quietness with which the women pursued their employment, in the lower and lower whispers in which the men continued their conversation.

There was something pervading the air of the whole apartment that conveyed a sense of the solemn, unworldly stillness which we attach to the abstract idea of religion.
Of the two men cautiously talking together, one was the patrician, Vetranio; the other, a celebrated physician of Rome.
Both the countenance and manner of the senator gave melancholy proof that the orgie at his palace had altered him for the rest of his life.
He looked what he was, a man changed for ever in constitution and character.

A fixed expression of anxiety and gloom appeared in his eyes; his emaciated face was occasionally distorted by a nervous, involuntary contraction of the muscles; it was evident that the paralysing effect of the debauch which had destroyed his companions would remain with him to the end of his existence.