The idea of a troop of barbarians ever being able to burn a palace at Rome was too wildly ridiculous for any one's gravity; and as the speech was repeated in other parts of the room, in spite of their dulness and lassitude the whole Court laughed.
'I know not why I should be amused by that man's nonsense,' said Camilla, suddenly becoming grave at the very crisis of a most attractive smile, 'when I am so melancholy at the thought of Vetranio's departure.

What will become of me when he is gone?
Alas! who will be left in the palace to compose songs to my beauty and music for my lute?
Who will paint me as Venus, and tell me stories about the ancient Egyptians and their cats?
Who at the banquet will direct what dishes I am to choose, and what I am to reject?
Who ?'--and poor little Camilla stopped suddenly in her enumeration of the pleasures she was about to lose, and seemed on the point of weeping as piteously as she had been laughing rapturously but the instant before.
Vetranio was touched--not by the compliment to his more intellectual powers, but by the admission of his convivial supremacy as a guide to the banquet, contained in the latter part of Camilla's remonstrance.
The sex were then, as now, culpably deficient in gastronomic enthusiasm.

It was, therefore, a perfect triumph to have made a convert to the science of the youngest and loveliest of the ladies of the Court.
'If she can gain leave of absence,' said the gratified senator, 'Camilla shall accompany me to Rome, and shall be present at the first celebration of my recent discovery of a Nightingale Sauce.' Camilla was in ecstasies.

She seized Vetranio's cheeks between her rosy little fingers, kissed him as enthusiastically as a child kisses a new toy, and darted gaily off to prepare for her departure.
'Vetranio would be better employed,' sneered the Cynic, 'in inventing new salves for future wounds than new sauces for future nightingales! His carcase will be carved by Gothic swords as a feast for the worms before his birds are spitted with Roman skewers as a feast for his guests! Is this a time for cutting statues and concocting sauces?
Fie on the senators who abandon themselves to such pursuits as Vetranio's!' 'I have other designs,' replied the object of all this moral indignation, looking with insulting indifference on the Cynic's repulsive countenance, 'which, from their immense importance to the world, must meet with universal approval.

The labour that I have just achieved forms one of a series of three projects which I have for some time held in contemplation.