However, the reader must not suppose that in the third century of our era such negotiations as that which now seems to be on the point of coming off between Callista and Agellius, were embellished with those transcendental sentiments and that magnificent ceremonial with which chivalry has invested them in these latter ages. There was little occasion then for fine speaking or exquisite deportment; and if there had been, we, who are the narrators of these hitherto unrecorded transactions, should have been utterly unable to do justice to them. At that time of day the Christian had too much simplicity, the heathen too little of real delicacy, to indulge in the sublimities of modern love-making, at least as it is found in novels; and in the case before us both gentleman and lady will be thought, we consider, sadly matter-of-fact, or rather semi-barbarous, by the votaries of what is just now called European civilization.

On Agellius’s entering the room, Aristo was pacing to and fro in some discomposure; however, he ran up to his friend, embraced him, and, looking at him with significance, congratulated him on his good looks. “There is more fire in your eye,” he said, “dear Agellius, and more eloquence in the turn of your lip, than I have ever yet seen. A new spirit is in you. So you are determined to come out of your solitude? That you should have been able to exist in it so long is the wonderment to me.”

Agellius had recovered himself, yet he dared not look again on Callista. “Do not jest, Aristo,” he said; “I am come, as you know, to talk to you about your sister. I have brought her a present of flowers; they are my best present, or rather not mine, but the birth of the opening year, as fair and fragrant as herself.”

“We will offer them to our Pallas Athene,” said his friend, “to whom we artists are especially devout.” And he would have led Agellius on, and made him place them in her niche in the opposite wall.

“I am more serious than you are,” said Agellius; “and I have brought the best my garden contains as an offering to your sister. She will not think I bring them for any other purpose. Where are you going?” he continued, as he saw his friend take down his broad petasus.

“Why,” answered Aristo, “since I am so poor an interpreter of your meaning, you can dispense with me altogether. I will leave you to speak for yourself, and meanwhile will go and see what old Dromo has to tell, before the sun is too high in the heavens.”

Saying this, with a half-imploring, half-satirical look at his sister, he set off to the barber’s at the Forum.

Agellius took up the flowers, and laid them on the table before her, as she sat at work. “Do you accept my flowers, Callista?” he asked.