Читать книгу Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs онлайн

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Fabiola, on parting with Agnes, retired to her apartment; and after the usual services had been rendered to her by her other two servants and Euphrosyne, she dismissed them with a gentler manner than ever she had shown before. As soon as they had retired, she went to recline upon the couch where first we found her; when, to her disgust, she discovered lying on it the style with which she had wounded Syra. She opened a chest, and threw it in with horror; nor did she ever again use any such weapon.

Volumina, from a painting of Pompeii. Scrinium, from a picture in the Cemetery of St. Callistus.

She took up the volume which she had last laid down, and which had greatly amused her; but it was quite insipid, and seemed most frivolous to her. She laid it down again, and gave free course to her thoughts on all that had happened. It struck her first what a wonderful child her cousin Agnes was,—how unselfish, how pure, how simple; how sensible, too, and even wise! She determined to be her protector, her elder sister in all things. She had observed, too, as well as her father, the frequent looks which Fulvius had fixed upon her; not, indeed, those libertine looks which she herself had often borne with scorn, but designing, cunning glances, such as she thought betrayed some scheme or art, of which Agnes might become the victim. She resolved to frustrate it, whatever it might be, and arrived at exactly the opposite conclusion to her father’s about him. She made up her mind to prevent Fulvius having any access to Agnes, at least at her house; and even blamed herself for having brought one so young into the strange company which often met at her father’s table, especially as she now found that her motives for doing so had been decidedly selfish. It was nearly at the same moment that Fulvius, tossing on his couch, had come to the determination never again, if possible, to go inside Fabius’s door, and to resist or elude every invitation from him.