“Yes, Lady Lucia, even in Cæsar’s household there are men who are ready to die for that faith the emperor persecutes. Already ‘its sound has gone forth into all lands, and its words to the end of the earth,’ and ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Dare you trust the slaves who have become the freed-men of the Lord, and have embraced Christianity at a time when its converts are assailed with fire and sword? If so, I will come to you in the dead hour of midnight as your guide.” “I dare,” replied Lucia Claudia, and she looked at Cornelia. “Thou, too, wilt go with me, my nurse?” “I follow thee, my foster-child, to death,” was the answer of the humble but truly attached friend. Fulvia smiled benignantly upon the new converts and withdrew. In the still hour of midnight Fulvia, veiled in the Christian fashion, entered the apartment where Lucia and Cornelia anxiously awaited her coming, enveloped also in their veils and palliums. Without uttering a syllable, Fulvia motioned them to follow her. Softly she glided along the corridor, till she gained the door that opened into the offices belonging to the house. Then she entered the court which was appropriated to the slaves, and, threading the mazes of a covered passage, struck sharply against the wall, when, to the surprise of her trembling companions, a large stone sliding back revealed a flight of steps, feebly illuminated by the light of a lamp, that glimmered in the distance like a faint star. Lucia did not perceive by what means the solid stone had receded from its place; to her it seemed the work of magic art, and she shuddered and clung to the arm of her nurse.