dangers which threatened the girl, great pity seized her. A certain
motherly feeling rose in the woman. Lygia seemed to her not only as
beautiful as a beautiful vision, but also very dear, and, putting her
lips to her dark hair, she kissed it.

But Lygia slept on calmly, as if at home, under the care of Pomponia
Græcina. And she slept rather long. Midday had passed when she opened
her blue eyes and looked around the cubiculum in astonishment.
Evidently she wondered that she was not in the house of Aulus.

"That is thou, Acte?" said she at last, seeing in the darkness the face
of the Greek.

"I, Lygia."

"Is it evening?"

"No, child; but midday has passed."

"And has Ursus not returned?"

"Ursus did not say that he would return; he said that he would watch in
the evening, with Christians, for the litter."

"True."

Then they left the cubiculum and went to the bath, where Acte bathed
Lygia; then she took her to breakfast and afterward to the gardens of
the palace, in which no dangerous meeting might be feared, since Cæsar
and his principal courtiers were sleeping yet. For the first time in her