resolved during his consulship with Tigellinus to hurl his master from the throne, and then to destroy his tools, together with the aged man he pretended to call to rule over the Roman people. A sea of crime and blood in perspective appeared between him and the sceptre he resolved to seize; but what were crimes and blood to a man of his bold temper and aspiring mind? He had grown up in guilt, and every step he had taken to advance his fortune was a deeper step in iniquity. The wild scheme he planned was deeply locked up in his own breast, but there were times when he longed to impart it prematurely to some one. There was none but Lucia in whose faith he dared confide; but he did not venture to disclose a secret that he knew would excite her abhorrence and alienate her affections, if indeed he possessed them. The virtuous partner of his couch guessed but too well the guilty machinations of his heart from his troubled sleep; for sleep, that seals up the thoughts of innocence, unlocks the bosom ones of guilt. The conscience of the consul Nymphidius slumbered in the day to wake again at night. How often did the gentle voice of Lucia break upon his midnight dreams of agony, and soothe his tortured spirit into peace! How often did she pray him to repent and seek the Christian’s creed, the Christian’s hope! Her accents never failed to charm away those horrors of remorse, but with morning he recovered his natural energy of purpose, and planned again his dark ambitious schemes. Did no recollections of the bigoted but dearly loved Adonijah intrude upon the mind of Lucia? No; for from the hour she became a wife she never suffered his name to pass her lips. It was only in prayer she dared remember him, so deep was her sense of the impassable barrier existing between them. Once, and only once, since her marriage had she beheld him. The meeting was accidental, and both hastily averted their eyes; for even the Christian proselyte did not hold the nuptial vow more sacred than the Hebrew slave. To him she was now the wife of Nymphidius Sabinus, a beautiful woman whose happiness was destroyed by him, but on whose dear and beloved remembrance he must dwell no more, unless he would break those laws of Moses he imagined he had hitherto kept inviolate. Unrestrained in the exercise of her peculiar tenets, religion poured its holy balm into the bleeding breast of Lucia, who brought her daily sorrows to the foot of the cross. As she advanced in Christianity she learned to imitate her dear Redeemer, and prayed unceasingly for the conversion and pardon of her cruel brother and unbelieving spouse; and, in imparting the glad tidings of salvation to her heathen household, and in communion with her Christian brethren,[14] she enjoyed that peace of God that passeth understanding, and that even lightened the bonds that chained her to Nymphidius Sabinus.