He handed to her the _icuncula puellaris_--the wooden doll which had been given him in the streets, with the mysterious promise that it would prove to be a charm against every malignant influence. He honoured it as Louis XI. did the little leaden saint which he wore in his hat when he had ceased to honour anything else. She glanced at it with utter scorn; then, to his horror, flung it on the ground and spurned it away. ‘And you are Pontifex Maximus!’ she said, concentrating into the words a world of unmitigated scorn. Nero was silent, but his look was so dark that, fearing lest she should have gone too far, she said in calmer tones, ‘You have a better amulet than that paltry image, and one which your mother gave you. But your follies render it unavailing.’ She pointed to a golden armlet, in which was set the skin of a serpent, which he wore on his right arm. The serpent had been found gliding in his room near his cradle; or, perhaps, according to another story, its cast-off skin had been found beside his pillow. Many legends had sprung up about it. The populace believed that it was a sacred spirit which had protected him, and had driven from his infant cradle the murderers sent by Messalina to destroy him. But, while Nero was yet a child, Agrippina had had the skin of the serpent curiously set in a jewelled armlet of great value, with rubies for its eyes, and emeralds marking the traces of its scales, and had clasped it on Nero’s arm, and bidden him to wear it forever. And as his life advanced in golden prosperity she had come to believe, or to half believe, that there was some mysterious charm about it--for a mind may be atheistical and yet profoundly superstitious.