Arsinoe had a good and tender heart, but she was young, pretty, and vain.  With affectionate persuasion she might be won over to anything, but Selene, when ever she remonstrated with her, made her feel her superiority over herself, acquired from her care of the family and her maternal character.  Thus, not a day passed without some quarrelling and tears between these two sisters who were so dissimilar, and yet, both so well disposed.  Arsinoe was always the first to offer her hand for a reconciliation, but Selene would rarely have a kinder answer ready to her affectionate advances than, “Let be,” or “Oh yes, I know!” and their outward intercourse bore an aspect of coolness, which was easily worked up to an outbreak of hostile speeches.  Hundreds of times they would go to bed without wishing each other ‘good-night,’ and still more often would they avoid any morning greeting when they first met in the day.

Arsinoe liked talking, but in Selene’s presence she was taciturn; there were few things in which Selene took pleasure, while her sister delighted in every thing which can charm youth.  It was the steward’s eldest daughter who attended to the daily needs of the children, their food and clothes; it was the second who superintended their games, and their dolls.  The eldest watched and taught them with anxious care, detecting in every little fault the germ of some evil tendency in the future, while the other enticed them into follies, it is true, but opened their minds to joyous impressions, and attained more by kisses and kind words than Selene could by fault-finding.  The children would call Selene when they wanted her, but would fly to Arsinoe as soon as they saw her.  Their hearts were hers, and Selene felt this bitterly; it seemed to her to be unjust, for she saw clearly that her sister could reap, from mere frivolous play in her idle hours, a sweeter reward than she could earn by the anxiety, trouble and exhausting toil, in which she often spent her nights.

But children are not unjust in this way.  It is true that they keep an account in their heart and not in their head.  Those who give them the warmth of affection they pay back most honestly.

On this particular night it was not, it is certain, with very sisterly feelings that Selene looked at the sleeping Arsinoe, and the words on the girl’s lips as she had dropped asleep, had sounded very unkind; but, nevertheless, they felt warmly towards each other, and any one who should have attempted to say a word against the one in the presence of the other would soon have found out how close a bond held together these two hearts, dissimilar as they were.  But no girl of nineteen can pass a night altogether without sleeping, however sadly she may turn and turn over and over again in her bed.  So slumber overmastered Selene every now and then for a quarter of an hour, and each time she dreamed of her sister.