Roman matrons! and, after all, might not these be in reality Roman matrons?
They called themselves Romans; might not they be the descendants of the old Roman matrons?
Might not they be of the same blood as Lucretia?
And were not many of their strange names--Lucretia amongst the rest--handed down to them from old Rome?
It is true their language was not that of old Rome; it was not, however, altogether different from it.

After all, the ancient Romans might be a tribe of these people, who settled down and founded a village with the tilts of carts, which by degrees, and the influx of other people, became the grand city of the world.

I liked the idea of the grand city of the world owing its origin to a people who had been in the habit of carrying their houses in their carts.

Why, after all, should not the Romans of history be a branch of these Romans?
There were several points of similarity between them; if Roman matrons were chaste, both men and women were thieves.

Old Rome was the thief of the world; yet still there were difficulties to be removed before I could persuade myself that the old Romans and my Romans were identical; and in trying to remove these difficulties, I felt my brain once more beginning to turn, and in haste took up another subject of meditation, and that was the patteran, and what Ursula had told me about it.
I had always entertained a strange interest for that sign by which in their wanderings the Romanese gave to those of their people who came behind intimation as to the direction which they took; but it now inspired me with greater interest than ever,--now that I had learned that the proper meaning of it was the leaves of trees.