Her daughter had died a heathen, and nothing troubled Paulina so deeply as that her soul was lost, and that her own struggling and striving for grace could not lead her to the goal beyond the grave.  No sacrifice seemed too great to purchase her child’s beatitude, and now, standing before Arsinoe and looking at her with deep emotion and admiration, she was seized with an idea which swiftly ripened to resolve.  She would win this sweet soul for the Redeemer, and implore Him with ceaseless prayers to save her hapless child as a reward for the work of grace in Arsinoe’s soul; and she felt as if she had signed the compact with the Redeemer, when, fully determined on this course, she went up to the girl and asked her: 

“You are quite forlorn, quite without relations?” Arsinoe bowed her head in assent, and Paulina went on: 

“And do you bear your loss with resignation?”

“What is resignation?” asked the girl modestly.  Hannah laid her hand on the widow’s arm and whispered: 

“She is a heathen.”

“I know it,” said Paulina shortly, and then went on kindly but positively: 

“You and yours have lost both parents and a home by your father’s death.  You shall find a new home in my house, with me; I ask nothing of you in return but your love.”

Arsinoe looked at the haughty lady in astonishment.  She could not yet feel any impulse of affection towards her, and she did not as yet understand that what was required of her was the one gift which the best will, the most loving heart in the world, could not offer at a command.  Paulina did not wait for her reply, but signed to Hannah to follow her to join the congregation now assembled at the evening meal.

A quarter of an hour later the two women returned.  The steward’s orphans were provided for.  Two or three Christian families were ready and willing to take in some of them, and many a kindly house-mother had begged to have the blind child; but in vain, for Hannah had claimed the right to bring up the hapless little boy in her own house, at any rate for the present.  She knew how Selene clung to him, and hoped by his presence to be able to work powerfully on the crushed and chilled heart of the poor girl.

Arsinoe did not contravene the arrangements of the two women.  She thanked them, indeed, for she felt that she once more stood on firm ground, but she also was immediately aware that it would be strewn with sharp stones.  The thought of parting from her little brothers and sisters was terrible and cruel, and never left her mind for an instant, while, accompanied by Hannah in person, she made her way back to Lochias.

The next morning her kind friend appeared again and led her and the little troup to Paulina’s town-house.  The steward’s creditors divided his little possessions; nothing but the chest of papyri followed the girl to her new home.  The hour in which the fondly-linked circle of children was riven asunder, when one child was taken here and another there, was the bitterest which Arsinoe had ever experienced or ever could experience through all the after years of her life.