The Roman villas had some excellent features,the peristyle of statues, the cryptoporticus with its midnight coolness and shade of a July noon, the mosaic floor, and the glimmering frescoes of the ceiling.

She asked to be entrusted with the charge of the seeds I had brought from Earth, and to be permitted to form a bed in the peristyle for the purpose of the experiment.

" A narrow door, not of crystal as usual, but of metal painted to resemble the walls, led directly from one corner of the peristyle into the grounds outside.