'A sister!' What mysterious virtue was there in that simple word, which made Philammon's brain reel and his heart throb madly?
A sister! not merely a friend, an equal, a help-mate, given by God Himself, for loving whom none, not even a monk, could blame him .-- Not merely something delicate, weak, beautiful--for of course she must be beautiful-whom he might cherish, guide, support, deliver, die for, and find death delicious.

Yes--all that, and more than that, lay in the sacred word.

For those divided and partial notions had flitted across his mind too rapidly to stir such passion as moved him now; even the hint of her sin and danger had been heard heedlessly, if heard at all.

It was the word itself which bore its own message, its own spell to the heart of the fatherless and motherless foundling, as he faced for the first time the deep, everlasting, divine reality of kindred....

A sister! of his own flesh and blood--born of the same father, the same mother--his, his, for ever! How hollow and fleeting seemed all 'spiritual sonships,' 'spiritual daughterhoods,' inventions of the changing fancy, the wayward will of man! Arsenius--Pambo--ay, Hypatia herself--what were they to him now?
Here was a real relationship ....