water; but that Selene, who was now recovering, did not know who her
preserver had been on this second occasion was clear from all that she
said.

Towards the end of February Antinous had come on three days in
succession, and Hannah now took the step of begging the bishop, Eumenes,
to give the gate keeper strict injunctions to look out for the young man
and to forbid his entering the garden, even with force if it should prove
necessary.

But "love laughs at locksmiths" and finds its way through locked doors,
and Antinous succeeded all the same in finding his way into Paulina's
garden. On one of these occasions he was so happy to surprise Selene,
as, supported on a stick and accompanied by a fair-haired boy and dame
Hannah herself, she hobbled up and down.

Antinous had learnt to regard everything crippled or defective with
aversion, as a monstrous failure of nature's plastic harmony, but to pity
it tenderly; but now he felt quite differently. Mary with her humpback
had at first horrified him; now he was always glad to see her though she
always crossed his wishes; and poor lame Selene, who had been mocked at
by the street boys as she limped along, seemed to him more adorable than
ever. How lovely were her face and form, how peculiar her way of
walking--she did not limp--no, she swayed along the garden. Thus, as he
said to himself afterwards, the Nereids are borne along on the undulating
waves. Love is easily satisfied, nor is this strange, for it raises all
that comes within its embrace to a loftier level of existence. In the
light of love weakness is a virtue and want an additional charm.

But the Bithynian's visits were not the widow's only cares; though she