Then she read the duty of husbands towards their wives, and of wives towards their husbands. Octavia bowed her head. She thought of all the numberless divorces; of the ladies who reckoned their years by the number of their husbands; of the scandals caused by the women who stooped to court gladiators and charioteers; of the fires of hell which Nero’s unfaithfulness had kindled on her own hearth. She could think of the home of Pætus Thrasea as happy; but scarcely of another except that of Pomponia—and Pomponia was a Christian.
Tryphæna had just begun the following passage:—
‘Finally, be ye all like-minded—’
when Britannicus entered. He did not know what was being read, and Octavia put her finger on her lip, and made a sign to him to sit down and listen.
The slave-girl continued—
‘Finally, be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded; not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For,
He that would love life,
And see good days,
Let him refrain his tongue from evil,
And his lips that they speak no guile: