"Not at all, most certainly not at all," Melissa sympathetically assured
him. He, however, went on:

"Yet what I endured meanwhile!--and while I passed so many long weeks of
pain and impatience on a couch, the words my mother had said about the
brother whom I murdered rang constantly in my ears as though a reciter
were engaged by day and night to reiterate them.

"But even this passed away. With the pain, which had spoiled many good
hours for me, the quiet had brought me something more to the purpose-
thoughts and plans. Yes, during those peaceful weeks the things my
father and tutor had taught me became clear and real for the first time.
I realized that I must become energetic if I meant ever to be a thorough
sovereign. As soon as I could use my foot again I became an industrious
and docile pupil under Cilo. From a child up to the time of this cruel
experience, my youthful heart had clung to my nurse. She was a Christian
from my father's African home--I knew she loved me best on earth. My
mother knew of no higher destiny than that of being the Domna,--[Domna,
lady or mistress, in corrupt Latin. Hence her name of Julia Domna] the
lady of the soldiers, the mother of the camp, and the lady philosopher
among the sages. What she gave me in the way of love was but copper
alms. She threw golden solidi of love into Geta's lap in lavish
abundance. And her sister and her nieces, who often lived with us,
treated me exactly as she did. They were distantly civil, or they
shunned me; but my brother was their spoiled plaything. I was as
incapable as Geta was master of the art of stealing hearts; but in my
childhood I needed none of them: for, if I wished for a kind word,
a sweet kiss, or the love of a woman, my nurse's arms were open to me.
Nor was she an ordinary woman. As the widow of a tribune who had fallen
in my father's service, she had undertaken to attend on me. She loved me