days in
succession, and Hannah now took the step of begging the bishop, Eumenes,
to give the gate keeper strict injunctions to look out for the young man
and to forbid his entering the garden, even with force if it should prove
necessary.

But "love laughs at locksmiths" and finds its way through locked doors,
and Antinous succeeded all the same in finding his way into Paulina's
garden. On one of these occasions he was so happy to surprise Selene, as,
supported on a stick and accompanied by a fair-haired boy and dame Hannah
herself, she hobbled up and down.

Antinous had learnt to regard everything crippled or defective with
aversion, as a monstrous failure of nature's plastic harmony, but to pity
it tenderly; but now he felt quite differently. Mary with her humpback
had at first horrified him; now he was always glad to see her though she
always crossed his wishes; and poor lame Selene, who had been mocked at
by the street boys as she limped along, seemed to him more adorable than
ever. How lovely were her face and form, how peculiar her way of
walking--she did not limp--no, she swayed along the garden. Thus, as he
said to himself afterwards, the Nereids are borne along on the undulating
waves. Love is easily satisfied, nor is this strange, for it raises all
that comes within its embrace to a loftier level of existence. In the
light of love weakness is a virtue and want an additional charm.

But the Bithynian's visits were not the widow's only cares; though she
bore the others, it is true, not anxiously but with pleasure. Her
household had increased by two living souls, and her income was very
small. That her patient might not want, she had to work with her own
hands while she superintended the girls in the factory, and to carry home
with her in the evening papyrus-leaves, not only for Mary, but for
herself too, and to glue them together during the long hours of the
night. As soon as Selene's condition improved, she too helped willingly
and diligently, but for many weeks the convalescent had to give up every
kind of employment.

Mary often looked at Hannah in silent trouble, for she looked very pale.
After she had, on one occasion fallen in a fainting fit, the deformed
girl had gathered courage and had represented to her that though she
ought indeed to put out at interest the talent intrusted to her by the
Lord, she ought not to spend it recklessly. She was giving herself no
rest, working day and night; visiting th