Читать книгу No. XIII; or, The Story of the Lost Vestal онлайн

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But Cæcilia, the wife of Severus, was content to be ignorant; she thought this Christianity, which had cost her the services of her slave, low and vulgar, too low and vulgar for her to give it a thought, if she had one to give. And when she had settled herself on a couch in the public baths with her three attendants, she was not well pleased to find Junia, the sister of Claudius, next her, and intent on asking questions and getting them answered.

Junia was the daughter of a British chief, or noble, as the Romans preferred that title, who had married an Italian girl, previously attached to the person of one of the ladies brought by a former governor from Rome.

The stern and rough old Briton had become enslaved by the beauty and fascination of the young Cornelia, and had laid himself and all he possessed at her feet.

She had withered under the cold breath of the north country, and the rude luxury of the Briton’s home had been little in harmony with the early life Cornelia had spent in Italy. She had died and left her husband disconsolate, with two children on his hands, whom he found it hard to manage. They united the bold daring of the Briton with the quick, hot passions of the Italian, and before Junia was fifteen she had thrust a stiletto, in a fit of rage, into the breast of a slave, and killed her!