It was decided, therefore, that Fabricius should take Baithene and the dog to a country house belonging to the family among the Sabine hills, near Nero’s villa of Sublacum (Subiaco), whilst Ethne should remain with Damaris and Lucia on the Aventine. To restore them to their home in the far-off Western isle, while so much of the intervening continent was ravaged by barbarian tribes, or infested by Imperial armies and officials, often worse than the barbarians, was at present out of the question. The safest course for the captives, it was concluded, was to treat them as part of the property and household of Fabricius, under such protection as his patrician and senatorial rank could give. This decision was communicated to the brother and sister as the only possible course to be taken at the moment. “But peril is nothing to us,” Baithene said appealingly, “if only we could reach our own land again.” “It is for your sister that the peril involved in such a journey cannot be encountered!” Fabricius replied. “But surely,” Ethne ventured to plead, “if it is His way, God will guard us in it.” “It is _not_ the Divine way,” rejoined Fabricius, with Roman imperiousness. “For it is not _ours_ for you. God has committed you to us, and we have to guard you as our own.” And Damaris added— “Who knows how soon your friend the British sailor may find you out, and bring you tidings which may guide us all?” Baithene acknowledged the right of ransom and the law of honour, whilst Ethne felt the claim of gratitude and the persuasion of hope and loving-kindness. And so the two were gathered under the sacred _patria potestas_ of the father of the Roman household. * * * * * It was a wonderful time for Ethne, those months with Damaris and Lucia. From the limited past of her own Irish clan she was suddenly transferred into the past of the whole civilized world, Greek and Roman, besides the link with the ancient East through Miriam, whom she often saw. And not less wonderful were those months to Damaris and Lucia. It was as if through a cleft in the far-off mountain walls of some Norwegian fiord they saw the sunset melting into dawn, the fading glory of the old world kindling into the fervent glow of the new. “I understand what thou hast written,” Lucia wrote to Marius, still detained in Gaul. “I also have found the Fountain of Youth.”