The house was pretty. It had been fresh painted, and was bright with color, and sweet with flowers, for every pillar was wreathed and each door garlanded. Numerous lamps illumined the chambers, and in the atrium were reflected in the water tank. The air was vibrating with music, as choirs sang Fescennian songs, and timbrels tinkled and pipes twittered.
Domitia was received by the wife of L. Ælius Lamia, who had adopted Domitia’s husband. He was a quiet man, who had no ambition, had taken no offices, and had passed his time in taming birds. He was the son of a better known man, who had been a friend of Horace.
The old woman, gentle in manner, took Domitia by the hand and led her into the tablinum, where was old Lamia, a cripple through gout, and he kissed the girl, patted her hands and spoke an affectionate welcome.
“Claudia and I,” said he, “were childless and so we adopted Lucius. He has been a good son to us, and this is a happy day to all three,—to him who has secured the sweetest flower of Rome, and to Claudia and me who obtain so good a daughter. But, ah! we are old and have our humors, I, with my gout, am liable to be peevish. You must bear with our infirmities. You will have a worthy husband, one cut out of the old rock of which were the ancient Romans, and not of the Tiberine mud of which the present generation are moulded.”
“Come now,” said the old woman, “the guests are about to depart, bid them farewell.”
Then she led the young girl back into the atrium.
There stood the Chaldæan, dark, stern, ominous.
Domitia in exuberant joy smiled at him, and said:
“Elymas! You see my happiness. Isis has for once been in error—we, my Lamia and I, are united, and there have been no hands thrust forth to part us.”
“My lady,” said the astrologer, “the day is not yet over.”