besought her to remain with him, to take charge of her little brother,
and not to abandon him and his old wife; for that it was a no less lovely
Christian duty to be compassionate and helpful, and cherish the feeble in
their old age. His wife added her entreaties and tears; but a sudden
chill had gripped Agne's heart; dry-eyed and rigid she resisted their
prayers, and took leave of her benefactors and of Papias. Bare-foot and
begging her way, she started for the south-east and reached the shores of
the Red Sea. There she found the stonemason's widow, emaciated and
haggard, with matted hair, evidently dying. Agne remained with her,
closed her eyes, and then lived on as Dorothea had lived, in the same
cave, till the fame of her sanctity spread far beyond the boundaries of
Egypt.

When Papias had grown to man's estate and was installed as steward to
Demetrius, he sought his sister many times and tried to persuade her to
live with him in his new home; but she never would consent to quit her
solitary cell. She would not have exchanged it for a king's palace; for
Orpheus appeared to her in nightly visions, radiant with the glories of
Heaven; and time was passing and the hour drawing near when she might
hope to be with him once more.

The widow Mary, in her later years, made many pilgrimages to holy places
and saintly persons, and among others to Agne, the recluse; but she would
never be induced to visit Cyrenaica, whither she was frequently invited
by her children and grandchildren; some more powerful excitant was needed
to prompt her to face the discomforts of a journey.

The old Heathen cults had completely vanished from the Greek capital long
before her death. With it died the splendor and the power of the second
city in the world; and of all the glories of the city of Serapis nothing