The sun had risen an hour since.

Heron had betaken himself to his workshop, whistling as he went, and in the kitchen his old slave Argutis was standing over the hearth preparing his master's morning meal.

He dropped a pinch of dill into the barley-porridge, and shook his gray head solemnly.
His companion Dido, a Syrian, whose wavy white hair contrasted strangely with her dark skin, presently came in, and, starting up, he hastily inquired, "Not in yet ?" "No," said the other woman, whose eyes were full of tears.

"And you know what my dream was.

Some evil has come to her, I am certain; and when the master hears of it--" Here she sobbed aloud; but the slave reproved her for useless weeping.
"You never carried her in your arms," whimpered the woman.
"But often enough on my shoulder," retorted the Gaul, for Argutis was a native of Augusta Trevirorum, on the Moselle.