"You never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may well say with Mr.Tennyson-- "Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay." Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society the boyhood of Seneca was spent.

Her sister, whose name is unknown, that aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an affection of unusual warmth.

He tells us how, when her husband was Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as they were for the most part execrated and shunned.

So serious was the evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should ever be allowed to accompany their husbands.

Not so with Helvia's sister.