nstance? If this really was so she would rather,
a thousand times rather, lift her hands in prayer to the smiling
Aphrodite, roguish Eros, beautiful Apollo, and all the nine Muses who
protected her Pollux, than to Him.

An obscure aversion rose up in her soul against the stern woman who could
not understand her, and of whose teaching and admonitions she scarcely
took in half; and she rejected many a word of the widow's which might
otherwise easily have found room in her heart, only because it was spoken
by the cold-mannered woman who at every hour seemed to try to lay some
fresh restraint upon her.

Paulina had never yet taken her with her to of the Christian assemblies
in her suburban villa; wished first to prepare her and to open her soul
to salvation. In this task no teacher of the congregation should assist
her. She, and she alone, should win to the Redeemer the soul of this fair
creature that had walked so resolutely in the ways of the heathen; this
was required of her as the condition of the covenant that she felt she
had made with Him, it was with the price of this labor that she hoped to
purchase her own child's eternal happiness. Day after day she had Arsinoe
into her own room, that was decked with flowers and with Christian
symbols, and devoted several hours to her instruction. But her disciple
proved less impressionable and less attentive every day; while Paulina
was speaking Arsinoe was thinking of Pollux, of the children, of the
festival prepared for the Emperor or of the beautiful dress she was to
have worn as Roxana. She wondered what young girl would fill her place,
and how she could ever hope to see her lover again. And it was the same
during Paulina's prayers as during her instruction, prayers that often
lasted more than hour, and which she had to attend, on her knees on
Wednesday and Friday, and with hands uplifted on all the other days of
the week.

When her adoptive mother had discovered how often she looked out into the
street she thought she had found out the reason of her pupil's distracted
attention and only waited the return of her brother, the architect, in
order to have the window blocked up.

As Pontius entered the lofty hall of his sister's house, Arsinoe came to
meet him. Her cheeks were flushed, she had hurried to fly down as fast as
possible from her window to the ground floor, in order to speak to the
architect before he went into the inner rooms or had talked with his
sister, and s