all suffering, and willing aid for any one she could serve, whom little children loved as soon as they looked into her eyes, and heard her voice.  Though a daughter of the abhorred Ebrimut, Veranilda was of Amal blood, and, despite what seemed her weakness and her errors, it soon appeared that she cherished fervidly the glory of the Gothic name.  This contradiction puzzled the wife of Osuin, whose thoughts could follow only the plainest track.  She suspected that her charge must be the victim of some enchantment, of some evil spell; and in their talk she questioned her with infinite curiosity concerning her acquaintance with Basil, her life in the convent at Praeneste, her release and the journey with Marcian.  Veranilda spoke as one who has nothing to conceal; only, when pressed for the story of that last day at the island villa, she turned away her face, and entreated the questioner’s forbearance.  All else she told with a sad simplicity.  Her religious conversion was the result of teaching she had received from the abbess, a Roman lady of great learning, who spoke of things till then unknown to her, and made so manifest the truth of the Catholic creed that her reason was constrained to accept it.  Obeying the king’s command, Athalfrida refrained from argument and condemnation, and, as Veranilda herself, when once she had told her story, never again returned to it, the subject was almost forgotten.  They lived together on terms as friendly as might be between persons so different.  The other ladies, their curiosity once satisfied, scarce paid any heed to her at all; and Veranilda was never more content than when left quite alone, to ply her needle and commune with her thoughts.

Against all expectation, the gates of Tibur remained obstinately closed; three weeks went by, and those who came on to the walls to parley had only words of scorn for the Gothic king, whom they bade beware of the Greek force which would shortly march to their succour.  Only a small guard of Isaurians held the town, but it was abundantly provisioned, and strong enough to defy attack for an indefinite time.  The Goths had no skill in taking fortresses by assault; when walls held firm against them, they seldom overcame except by blockade; and this it was which, despite his conquest of the greater part of Italy, made Totila thus slow and cautious in his approach to Rome.  He remembered that Vitiges, who laid siege to the city with a hundred thousand men, had retreated at last with his troops diminished by more than half, so worn and dispirited that they scarce struck another blow against Belisarius.  The Greek commander, Totila well knew, would not sally forth and risk an engagement:  to storm the battlements would be an idle, if not a fatal, attempt; and how, with so small an army, could he encompass so vast a wall?  To guard the entrance to the river with his ships, and to isolate Rome from every inland district of Italy, seemed to the Gothic king the only sure way of preparing his final triumph.  But time pressed; however beset with difficulties, Belisarius would not linger for ever beyond Hadria.  The resistance of Tibur excited Totila’s impatience, and at length stirred his wrath.  Osuin heard a terrible threat fall from his lips, and the same evening whispered it to Athalfrida.