It was for Melissa’s sake that, when the high-priest’s dwelling was searched by the new magistrate’s spies from cellar to garret, she had patiently submitted to her husband’s hard words.  She had liked to think that she might bring this girl as a pure white lamb into the fold of the Good Shepherd, who to herself was so dear, and through whom her saddened life had found new charm, her broken heart new joys.  A few hours since she had assured her friend Origen that she had found a young Greek who would prove to him that a heathen who had gone through the school of suffering with a pure and compassionate heart needed but a sign, a word of flame, to recognize at once the beatitude of Christianity and long to be baptized.  And here she discovered the maiden of whom she had such fair hopes, with a smile on her lips and beaming looks, while so many innocent men were being slaughtered, as though this were a joy to her!

What had become of the girl’s soft, tender heart, which but yesterday had been ready for self-sacrifice if only she might secure the well-being of those she loved?  Was she, Euryale, in her dotage, that she could be so deceived by a child?

Her heart beat faster with disappointment; and yet she would not condemn the sinner unheard.  So, with a swift impulse she took the roll up from Melissa’s lap, and her voice was sorrowful rather than severe as she exclaimed: 

“I had hoped, my child, that these scriptures might prove to you, as to so many before you, a key to open the gates of eternal truth.  I thought that they would comfort you, and teach you to love the sublime Being whose exemplary life and pathetic death are no longer unknown to you, since Johanna told you the tale.  Nay, I believed that they might presently arouse in you the desire to join us who—­”

But here she stopped, for Melissa had fallen on her neck, and while Euryale, much amazed, tried to release herself from her embrace, the girl cried out, half laughing and half in tears: 

“It has all come about as you expected!  I will live and die faithful to that sublime Saviour, whom I love.  I am one of you—­yes, mother, now—­even before the baptism I long for.  For I was weary and heavy-laden above any, and the word of the Lord hath refreshed me.  This book has taught me that there is but one path to true happiness, and it is that which is shown us by Jesus Christ.  O lady, how much fairer would our life on earth be if what is written here concerning blessedness were stamped on every heart!  I feel as though in this hour I had been born again.  I do not know myself; and how is it possible that a poor child of man, in such fearful straits and peril as I, and after such a scene of horror, should feel so thankful and so full of the purest gladness?”

The matron clasped her closely in her arms, and her tears bedewed the girl’s face while she kissed her again and again; and the cheerfulness which had just now hurt her so deeply she now regarded as a beautiful miracle.