off the layers of turf and moss before the marble would entrust me with its secret.

Had it one to narrate? Certainly! I held the commencement in my hand: "Hic," "here"--what had here taken place, or was here attested?

After I had with my pocket-knife cleared the first piece from earth and root-fibres, I held its broken surface to that of the still covered slab; they fitted very well together. Then I set to work; it was not easy, not soon over; with hand, knife, and the point of my alpenstock, I had to scrape and tear away fully two feet of turf, earth, moss, and, toughest of all, the numerous little roots of the clasping ivy; although the sun was setting and the breeze was cool, the labour made me very hot; the perspiration fell from my brow on the old Roman stone, which now showed itself as a tolerably long slab. After the first few minutes my zeal was sharpened by perceiving more letters. It was at last so far laid bare that I could take hold of the edges with both hands, and with some little jerks bring it fully to view. I then held the broken stone with the deciphered hic against it; this gave me the direction in which farther to search.

I hastily scraped away earth, stones, and moss from the cutting of the letters, for it was quickly getting darker, and I wished to make out at once the long-buried secret. I succeeded; without question, though certainly with difficulty, I read the inscription, in two lines under each other:

The two last letters of the third word alone were missing; the stone was here broken away, and its companion piece was not to be found; but it was self-evident that the missing letters were--as--the inscription meant:

Clearly the gray marble slab had formed the threshold of the entrance to the garden or porch of the villa; and the adage expressed the wish that all evil might be kept far from the door.

I sought in vain for yet farther traces, for remains of household utensils.

Pleased and satisfied with the discovery of the pretty proverb, I then rested.

Wiping my heated brow, I sat down on the soft moss by my work, thinking again and again of the words; I supported my back against an old oak, which had grown up out of the rubbish of the house, or, perhaps, out of the good mould of the little garden.

A wondrous quiet reigned over the hill, which was quite separated from the world by trees and bushes.

Only very, very faintly one heard the trickling of the small, scanty vein of water which came out of the earth close by me, and only sometimes, when it found a quicker fall, rippled more strongly. Once, no doubt, when handsomely enclosed in the clear gray marble, it had spoken loader.

In the distance, on the summit of a high beech, the golden oriole sang its flute-like evening song, which told of still deeper forest loneliness, for the listener seldom hears the notes of the "Pirol," except in such a solitude. Bees hummed here and there over the mossy carpet, coming out of the dark thicket and seeking the warmer light, sleepy themselves and lulling to sleep with their humming.

I thought, whose "happiness" once dwelt here? And has the wish of the inscription been fulfilled? Was the proverb powerful enough to keep off all evil? The stone which bore it is broken--a bad sign. And what kind of happiness was this? But stay! At that time Felicitas occurs as a woman's name; perhaps the proverb, with a graceful double meaning, would say: "Here dwells happiness; that is to say, my Felicitas; may nothing evil come over her, over our threshold!"

But "Felicitas"--who was she? and who was he, whose happiness she had been, and what had become of them? And this villa, how----?

This was my last waking thought, for with the last question I fell asleep.

And long did I slumber; for when the song of the nightingale, loudly exultant, close to my ear, awoke me, it was dark night; a single star shone through the branches of the oak. I sprang up: "Felicitas! Fulvius!" I cried, "Liuthari! Felicitas! where are they?"

"Felicitas!" softly repeated the echo from the hill. All else was still and dark.

So was it a dream?

Now, this dream I will retain.

Felicitas, I hold thee!

Thou shalt not escape me.

Poetical fancy can immortalise thee.

And I hastened home, and the same night noted down the history which I had dreamt among the ruins of the old Roman villa.

CHAPTER I.

It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams from the west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villa which crowned it.

Here and there on the great street a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a yoke of Noric oxen, was returning home at the close of the market-day through the west gate of Juvavum, the Porta Vindelica. The colonists and peasants had been selling vegetables, fowls, and pigeons in the Forum of Hercules; but the bustle of the street reached the hill only as a murmur. Here it was still and quiet; one only heard outside the low stone wall which surrounded the garden the lively rippling of a little spring, which at its source was prettily enclosed in marble, and after it had fed the fountain in the middle, and had wandered through the garden in artificially winding rivulets, escaped through a gap in the wall and hurried down the hill in a stone channel. Close by was the gate entrance, surmounted by a statue of Mercury, but open, without door or lattice. In the direction of the town, towards the south-east, there lay at the foot of the hill carefully tended vegetable and fruit gardens, meadows with the most succulent verdure, and corn-fields with luxuriant grain, which products the Romans had brought into the land of the barbarians.

Behind the villa, towards the north, fine beech-woods towered and rustled, ascending the mountain slopes; and out of their depths sounded from afar the metallic note of the golden oriole.

It was so beautiful, so peaceful; but from the west--and no less from the south-east!--threatening storm-clouds were rising.

From the entrance a straight path, strewn with white sand, led through the wide-spreading garden, between tall ilices and yews, which according to the long ruling fashion had been cut into all kinds of geometrical figures--a taste, or rather want of taste, which the Rococo did not invent, but only newly borrowed from the gardens of the Imperators.

Statues were placed at regular intervals in the space between the garden gate and the entrance to the dwelling-house: nymphs, a Flora, a satyr, a Mercury--bad work in plaster; the stout Crispus made them by the dozen in his workshop on the Vulcan market-place in Juvavum; and he sold them cheap: for the times were not good for men, and were bad for gods and demi-gods; but these were all gifts, for Crispus was the father's brother of the young householder.

From the entrance of the garden, echoing from the stone wall of the enclosure, there sounded several strokes of a hammer, only lightly, for they were given carefully by an artist-hand; they seemed to be the last improving, finishing efforts of a master.

Now the hammerer sprang up; he had been kneeling just within the entrance, near to which, standing upright against each other, were some dozen yet unworked marble slabs, which pointed out the dwelling of a stone-mason. He stuck