st half-year sped with Zarah? Very slowly and very
heavily, as time usually passes with those who mourn. And deeply did
Zarah mourn for Hadassah--her more than mother, her counsellor, her
guide--the being round whom maiden's affections so closely had twined
that she had felt that she could hardly sustain existence deprived of
Hadassah. And much Zarah wept for her father--though in remembering
him a deep spring of joy mingled with her sorrow. A thousand times did
Zarah repeat to herself his words of blessing--a thousand times
fervently thank God that she and her parent had met. The words of
Lysimachus had lightened her heart of what would otherwise have
painfully pressed upon it. Those words had told her that Pollux was a
doomed man; that apostasy on her part could not have saved his life;
that had he not fallen by the Syrian's dagger, he would have been but
reserved for the headsman's axe. And had Pollux perished thus, there
would have been none of that gleam of hope which, at least in Zarah's
eyes, now rested upon his grave.

Zarah never left the precincts of her secluded dwelling, except to
visit her parents' grave--where she went as often as she dared venture
forth, accompanied by the faithful Anna. No feet but their own ever
crossed the threshold of their home. Zarah's simple wants were always
supplied. Anna disposed in Jerusalem of the flax which her young
mistress spun, as soon as Zarah had regained sufficient strength to
resume her humble labours. During the period of the maiden's severe
illness, Anna had secretly disposed of the precious rolls of Scripture
from which Hadassah had made her copies, and had obtained for them such
a price as enabled her for many weeks to procure every comfort and even
luxury required by the sufferer. The copies themselves, traced by the
dear hand now mouldering into dust, Zarah counted as her most precious
possession; her most soothing occupation was to read them, pray over
them, commit to memory their contents.

During all this long period of time, Zarah never saw Lycidas, but she
had an instinctive persuasion that he was not far away--that, like an
unseen good angel, he was protecting her still. The name of the
Athenian was never forgotten in Zarah's prayers. She felt that she
owed a debt of gratitude to one who had struck down her father's
murderer, who had paid the last honours to his remains and those of
Hadassah, and to whose care she believed that she owed her