hese lost souls, though happy in her own faith, she had
constantly turned for peace to her Saviour and always found it; but
to-night it was not so, for a new and unexpected temptation had sprung
up for her in the house of Porphyrius.

She had heard Gorgo sing again, and joined her own voice with hers.
Dirges, yearning hymns, passionate outpourings in praise of the mighty
and beautiful divinity had filled her ear and stirred her soul with an
ecstatic thrill, although she knew that they, were the composition
of heathen poets and had first been sung to the harmony of lutes by
reprobate idolaters. And yet, and yet they had touched her heart, and
moved her soul to rapture, and filled her eyes with tears.

She could not but confess to herself that she could have given no
purer, sweeter, or loftier expression to her own woes, thankfulness,
aspirations, and hopes of ever lasting life and glory, than this gifted
creature had given to the utterance of her idolatry. Surprise, unrest,
nay, some little jealousy had been mingled with her delight at Gorgo's
singing. How was it that this heathen could feel and utter emotions
which she had always conceived of as the special privilege of the
Christian, and, for her own part, had never felt so fervently as in
the hours when she had drawn closest to her Lord? Were not her own
sentiments the true and right ones; had her intercourse with these
heathens tainted her?

This doubt disturbed her greatly; it must be based on something more
than mere self-torture, for she had not once thought of asking to whom
the two-part hymn, with its tender appeal, was addressed, when Karnis
had first gone through it with her alone; nor even subsequently, when
she had sung it with Gorgo--timidly at first, more boldly the second
time, and finally without a mistake, but carried completely away by the
beauty and passion of the emotions it expressed.

She knew now, for Karnis himself had told her. It was the Lament of
Isis for her--lost husband and brother--oh that horrible heathen
confusion!--The departed Osiris. The wailing widow, who called on him
to return with "the silent speech of tears," was that queen of the
idolater's devils whose shameful worship her father had often spoke of
with horror. Still, this dirge was so true and noble, so penetrated with
fervent, agonized grief, that it had gone to her heart. The sorrowing
Mother of God, Mary herself, might thus have besought the resurrection
of her Son; jus