Hannah were in the right. It was not the widow but the
little blind boy who had won her to Christianity. The child's influence
had proceeded in a strange course. In the first instance the promises of
the slave Master that Helios should some day meet his father again in a
shining realm among beautiful angels had a powerful effect on the blind
child's tender heart and vivid imagination. In Hannah's house his hopes
had received fresh nurture, and Mary and the widow told him much about
their kind and loving God and His Son who loved children and had invited
them to come to Him. When Selene began to recover and he was permitted
to talk to her he poured out to her all his delight at what he had heard
from the women. At first, to be sure, his sister took no pleasure in
these fanciful fables and tried to shake his belief and lead back
his heart to the old gods. But while she tried to guide the child, by
degrees she felt compelled to follow in his path; at first with wavering
steps, but dame Hannah helped her by her example and with many words
of good counsel. She only taught her doctrine when the girl asked her
questions and begged for information. All that here surrounded Selene
breathed of love and peace, and the child felt this, spoke of it, forced
her to acknowledge it, and, in his own person, was the first object on
which to exercise a wish hitherto unknown to her, to be herself loving
and lovable. The boy's firm faith, which was not to be shaken by any
reasoning or by any of the myths which she knew, touched her deeply and
led to her asking Hannah what was the real bearing of one and another of
his statements. It had always seemed a comfort to her that the miseries
of our earthly life would come to an end with death; but Helios left her
without a reply when he said in a sad voice:

"Do you feel no longing, then, to see our father and mother again?"

To see her mother again! This thought gave her an interest in the next
world, and dame Hannah fanned the spark of hope in her soul into flame.

Selene had seen and suffered much misery, and was accustomed to call the
gods cruel. Helios told her that God and the Saviour were good and kind,
and loved human beings as their children.

"Is it not good and kind," asked he, "of our Heavenly Father to lead us
to dame Hannah?"

"Yes, but we have all been torn apart," said Selene. "Never mind," said
the child confidently, "we shall all meet in Heaven."

As she got well Selene aske