And, not many days after, before the high altar of this same
Church of the Holy Apostles, Pulcheria the princess stood with
her younger sisters, Arcadia and Marina, and with all the
impressive ceremonial of the Eastern Church, made a solemn vow to
devote their lives to the keeping of their father's heritage and
the assistance of their only brother; to forswear the world and
all its allurements; never to marry; and to be in all things
faithful and constant to each other in this their promise and
their pledge.
And they were faithful and constant. The story of those three
determined young maidens, yet scarcely "in their teens," reads
almost like a page from Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The
Princess," with which many of my girl readers are doubtless
familiar. The young regent and her sisters, with their train of
attendant maidens, renounced the vanity of dress--wearing only
plain and simple robes; they spent their time in making garments
for the poor, and embroidered work for church decorations; and
with song and prayer and frugal meals, interspersed with frequent
fasts, they kept their vow to "forswear the world and its
allurements," in an altogether strict and monotonous manner.
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