and asked
her:

"You are quite forlorn, quite without relations?" Arsinoe bowed her head
in assent, and Paulina went on:

"And do you bear your loss with resignation?"

"What is resignation?" asked the girl modestly. Hannah laid her hand on
the widow's arm and whispered:

"She is a heathen."

"I know it," said Paulina shortly, and then went on kindly but
positively:

"You and yours have lost both parents and a home by your father's death.
You shall find a new home in my house, with me; I ask nothing of you in
return but your love."

Arsinoe looked at the haughty lady in astonishment. She could not yet
feel any impulse of affection towards her, and she did not as yet
understand that what was required of her was the one gift which the best
will, the most loving heart in the world, could not offer at a command.
Paulina did not wait for her reply, but signed to Hannah to follow her to
join the congregation now assembled at the evening meal.

A quarter of an hour later the two women returned. The steward's orphans
were provided for. Two or three Christian families were ready and willing
to take in some of them, and many a kindly house-mother had begged to
have the blind child; but in vain, for Hannah had claimed the right to
bring up the hapless little boy in her own house, at any rate for the
present. She knew how Selene clung to him, and hoped by his presence to
be able to work powerfully on the crushed and chilled heart of the poor
girl.

Arsinoe did not contravene the arrangements of the two women. She thanked
them, indeed, for she felt that she once more stood on firm ground, but
she also was immediately aware that it would be strewn with sharp stones.
The thought of parting from her little brothers and sisters was terrible
and cruel, and never left her mind for an instant, while, accompanied by
Hannah in person, she made her way back to Lochias.

The next morning her kind friend appeared again and led her and the
little troup to Paulina's town-house. The steward's creditors divided his
little possessions; nothing but the chest of papyri followed the girl to
her new home. The hour in which the fondly-linked circle of children was
riven asunder, when one child was taken here and another there, was the
bitterest which Arsinoe had ever experienced or ever could experience
through all the after years of her life.

CHAPTER XII.

A lovely garden adjoined the Caesareum, the palace in which Sabina was
res