d you another by this occasion, hoping, I who am vain,
that you have not forgotten me, and that the reading of it may even give
you pleasure. Most dear Miriam, know that I accomplished my voyage to
Rome in safety, visiting your grandsire on the way to pay him a debt I
owed. But that story you will perhaps have heard.

"From Tyre I sailed for Italy, but was cast away upon the coasts of
Melita, where many of us were drowned. By the favour of some god,
however--ah! what god I wonder--I escaped, and taking another ship came
safely to Brundisium, whence I travelled as fast as horses would carry
me to Rome. Here I arrived but just in time, for I found my uncle Caius
very will. Believing, moreover, that I had been drowned in the shipwreck
at Melita, he was about to make a will bequeathing his property to the
Emperor Nero, but by good fortune of this he had said nothing. Had he
done so I should, I think, be as poor to-day as when I left you,
dear, and perhaps poorer still, for I might have lost my head with my
inheritance.

"As it was I found favour in the sight of my uncle Caius, who a week
after my arrival executed a formal testament leaving to me all his land,
goods, and moneys, which on his death three months later I inherited.
Thus I have become rich--so rich that now, having much money to spend,
by some perversity which I cannot explain, I have grown careful and
spend as little as possible. After I had entered into my inheritance I
made a plan to return to Judaea, for one reason and one alone--to be near
to you, most sweet Miriam. At the last moment I was stayed by a very
evil chance. That bust which you made of me I had managed to save from
the shipwreck and bring safe to Rome--now I wish it was at the bottom of
the sea, and you shall learn why.

"When I came into possession of this house in the Via Agrippa, which is
large and beautiful, I set it in a place of honour in the antechamber
and summoned that sculptor, Glaucus, of whom I have spoken to you, and
others who follow the art, to come and pass judgment upon the work. They
came, they wondered and they were silent, for each of them feared lest
in praising it he should exalt some rival. When, however, I told them
that it was the work of a lady in Judaea, although they did not believe
me, since all of them declared that no woman had shaped that marble,
knowing that they had nothing to fear from so distant an artist whoever
he might be, they began to praise the work wi