een unknown to her. She had been busy and industrious out
of pride and fear, but never from love; she had selfishly tried to fling
from her the sacred gift of life without ever thinking what would become
of those whom it was her duty to care for. She had cursed her lovely
sister who needed her protection and care, and even Pollux, her
childhood's playfellow; and a thousand times had she imprecated the
ruler of human destinies. All this she now keenly felt with all the
earnestness natural to her, but she was soothed by the tidings that
there was One who had redeemed the world, and taken on Himself the sins
of every repentant sinner.

After Selene had once expressed to the widow her desire to be a
Christian, Hannah brought the bishop to see her. He himself undertook to
instruct the girl and he found in her a disciple anxious and craving for
knowledge. Just like those dried-up and dull-colored plants which,
when they are plunged in water, open out and revive, so did her heart,
untimely withered and dry; and she longed to be perfectly recovered
that she, like Hannah, might tend the sick and exercise that love which
Christ demands of His followers. That which most particularly appealed
to her in her new faith was that it did not promise joys to the rich
who could make great sacrifices, but to the miserable sinner who with a
contrite heart yearned for forgiveness, to the poor and abject, towards
whom she felt as though they belonged to the same family as herself. And
her valiant spirit could not be satisfied with intentions but longed
to act upon them. In Besa she could set to work with Hannah, and this
prospect lightened her grief in quitting Alexandria.

A favoring wind bore the voyagers southward safe to their destination.

Two days after their departure Antinous once more stole into Paulina's
garden. He went up to the widow's little house looking in vain for the
deformed girl; the road was open; her absence could but be pleasing
to him, and yet it disquieted him. His heart beat wildly, for
to-day--perhaps he might find Selene alone. He opened the door without
knocking, but he dared not cross the threshold, for in the anteroom
stood a strange man, placing boards against the wall. The carpenter, a
Christian to whom Paulina had given this little house for his family to
live in, asked Antinous what he wanted.

"Is dame Hannah at home?" stammered the Bithynian.

"She no longer lives here."

"And her adopted daughter, Sel