Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/184

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CHAPTER VIII.

RUS IN URBE.

ROMÆ Tibur Amem, ventosus. Tibure Romam! quoth the Latin satirist, ridiculing his own foibles, like his neighbour's, with the laughing, half-indulgent banter that makes him the pleasantest, the chattiest, and the most companionable of classic writers. How he loved the cool retirement of his Sabine home, its grassy glades, its hanging woodlands, its fragrant breezes wandering and whispering through those summer slopes,