The room in which she sat was hung with pictured tapestry, representing Christ and the Apostles; crude work, but such as had pleased Faltonia Proba, whose pious muse inspired her to utter the Gospel in a Virgilian canto.

And at Aurelia's side, bending over a piece of delicate needlework, sat the Gothic maiden, clad in white, her flaxen hair, loosely held with silk, falling behind her shoulders, shadowing her forehead, and half hiding the little ears.

At Basil's entrance she did not look up; at the first sound of his voice she bent her head yet lower, and only when he directly addressed her, asking, with all the gentleness his lips could command, whether the journey had left much fatigue, did she show for a moment her watchet eyes, answering few words with rare sweetness.
'Be seated, dear my lord,' said his cousin, in the soft, womanly voice once her habitual utterance.

'There has been so little opportunity of free conversation, that we have almost, one might say, to make each other's acquaintance yet.

But I hope we may now enjoy a little leisure, and live as becomes good kinsfolk.' Basil made such suitable answer as his agitation allowed.
'And the noble Decius,' pursued Aurelia, 'will, I trust, bestow at times a little of his leisure upon us.