He had not been in Jerusalem long before he learnt much of the new teaching. He had secured for his mother, close to the Fortress Antonio, where he himself lodged, a small house belonging to a widow who, since her husband's death, had fallen into comparative poverty. The Lady Aglais, attended still by her old freedwoman, Melena, was allowed the best and coolest part of this house entirely to herself, with a staircase of their own leading to the flat roof. There they passed much of their evenings after the sun had set, looking at the thickly-built opposite hills, the mansions on Zion, or down into the Tyropæon from which the hum of a great multitude came, mellowed by the distance, and disposing the mind to contemplation. Many wonderful things, from time to time, they heard of him who was now teaching--things some of which, nay, the greater part of which, as one of the sacred writers expressly declares, never were recorded, and the whole of which could not be contained in the libraries of the world. It may well, then, be imagined in what a situation Paulus and his mother were--having no interest in disbelieving, no chair of Moses to abdicate, no doctorial authority or pharisaic prestige inciting them to impugn the known truth--in what a situation they were, for accepting or declining what was then offered. After twenty years of separation, a trace of Esther had been recovered by Paulus. One evening, his mother was on the flat roof of her residence awaiting his customary visit, when her son appeared and alarmed her by his pallor. He had seen Esther on foot in a group of women at the Gate of Gennath, going forth into the country, as he was entering the city on horseback. Aglais smiled sadly, saying: "Alas! dear son, is that all? I long since knew that she still lived; but I would not disturb your mind by the useless intelligence." "Scarcely altered," murmured Paulus abstractedly, "while I am quite old. Yes, she must now be past thirty; yes, near thirty-five." "As to that," said the mother, "you are thirty-eight, and scarcely seem twenty-nine. Old Rebecca, the mistress of this house, who lives still in the ground-story, as you are aware, has told me much about Esther." "She is married, I suppose," said Paulus, with a look of anxiety. "No," replied Aglais. "She has had innumerable offers (spite of her comparative poverty), and has declined them all." "But what boots it?" exclaimed Paulus. "Old Josiah Maccabeus is dead," said Aglais. And here mother and son dropped the subject by mutual consent.