Bissula III. — Where Bissula was born, and how she came into her Master's Hands

Bissula, born and bred beyond chilly Rhine, Bissula, privy to the secrets of the Danube's birth, a captive maid, a free girl made, she queens it as the pet of him whose spoil of war she was. Lacking a mother, wanting a nurse, she who knows not a mistress' control, who herself rules her master's house, who for her lot and native land felt no disgrace, being straightway freed from slavery ere she felt it, — is not so changed by Roman blessings, but that she remains German in features, blue of eyes and fair of hair. A maid of either race now speech, now looks present her: the last declare her a daughter of the Rhine, the first a child of Latium.