It seemed as if the ardor of her hatred had burned out her
strength. Her lovely eyes were lustreless. The neck on which Sahira
had hung a splendid cord of sapphires from Persia, linked together
with milky pearls from India, was thin and haggard. Her skin, fair and
beautiful on that day when she sat so proudly by her husband and
daughter in the Circus, watching the gladiatorial contest, was yellow
and drawn. The jewels were a mockery in the shadow of threatened
death.
It was nearing sundown when Virgilia, very tired from the hours passed
in gently soothing her mother's querulous complaints, giving her
cooling drinks and telling her old Grecian legends to amuse her,
entered her own little cubicleum, her sleeping-chamber.
In Roman houses, the sleeping quarters were the smallest, the worst
ventilated of all. It is a superstition, come down to modern times,
that night air is injurious. Many ancient Roman dwellings show that
rooms used for sleeping sometimes had no windows at all, the sole
means of ventilation being provided by the doorway, which was
curtained, opening into a larger room, or by a small trap door in the
ceiling.
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