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388 DAKKNESS AND DAWN
The hint was taken. Octavia's household was now a very
simple and quiet one. The swarm of courtiers had deserted
her. None of the fine ladies of Eome who desired the approval
of Nero, came near her gate. The last of the great
house of the Claudii, the wife and daughter and descendant
of emperors, was left to her seclusion, and she rejoiced in it.
She spun wool among her maidens she was considerate
;
of
the happiness of her slaves. She manumitted Pythias and
Tryphsena, who had suffered for her. Fair peace began to
reign around her, and she nursed the hope that she might
be suffered to live out her life in quietude until a fairer day
should haply dawn. Lucas was summoned, and to her, as
to the Christians of her household, he proved himself to be
indeed also a physician of the soul.
He was an Asiatic in the prime of life, with a countenance
singularly radiant and refined. He spoke the purest
Greek, and had been accustomed to the society of Theophilus
of Antioch and other persons of rank, to whom he had
been endeared by his medical skill. Already, during the
imprisonment of Paulus at Caesarea, he had busied himself
in the collection of those facts which he was soon to enroll
in ' the most beautiful book in all the world.' It was common
for Roman families to listen to readings from accomplished
Greeks, and it was not difficult for Octavia, with the
aid of Pomponia and her Christian slaves, to arrange that
Lucas should read to them his yet unfinished records of the
Life of the Saviour. Those records, and the conversations
which she held with the Evangelist, and his answers to her
questions, at last convinced the heart of the Empress. She
saw that in the faith of the gospel there was a peace, a
beauty, a blessedness, such as she had never known, of which
she had never dreamed. Perilous as the decision was, she
determined to be admitted by baptism into the flock of
Christ. One morning, at break of day, in the presence of
Lucas, Poraponia, and Tryphaena, but otherwise in the deepest
secrecy, she was baptised by Linus.
And thenceforth there reigned in her heart a peace which
no further waves of trouble could disturb. She began to understand
why it was that, in spite of her mourning garb, in
spite of her many trials, Pomponia, though her face was
often sad, was far happier than any of the Roman matrons.