been spurred on to the rashest extremes by his
confidence of success.

Amru received the son of the Mukaukas as a father might; after examining
the result of his labors he found it far superior to his own efforts in
the same direction, and he charged Orion to carry out the new division
of the country, which he confirmed excepting in a few details.

"Perform your duty and do your utmost in the future to go on as you have
begun!" cried Amru; and the young man replied:

"In this bitter and yet happy interval I have become clear on many
points."

"And may I ask on what?" asked the governor. "I would gladly hear."

"I have discovered, my lord," replied Orion, "that there is no such
thing as happiness or unhappiness in the sense men give to the words.
Life appears to each of us as we ourselves paint it. Hard times which
come into our lives from outside are often no more than a brief night
from which a brighter day presently dawns--or the stab of a surgeon's
knife, which makes us sounder than before. What men call grief is, times
without number, a path to greater ease; whereas the ordinary happiness
of mankind flows, swiftly as running waters, down from that delightful
sense of ease. Like a ship, which, when her rudder is lost, is more
likely to ride out the storm on the high seas than near the sheltering
coast, so a man who has lost himself may easily recover himself and
his true happiness in the wildest turmoil of life, but rarely and with
difficulty if his existence runs calmly on. All other blessings are
comparatively worthless if we are not upheld by the consciousness of
fulfilling the task of life in faithful earnest, and of cheerfully
dealing with the problems it sets before us. The lost one was found
as soon as he placed his whole being and faculties at the service of a
higher duty, with God in his heart and before his eyes. I have learnt
from my own experience, and from Paula's good friends, to strive
untiringly after what is right, and to find my own weal in that of
others.

"The sense of lost liberty is hard to bear; but leave me love, and give
me room and opportunity to prove my best powers in the service of the
community, even in a prison--and though I cannot be perfectly happy, for
that is impossible without freedom--I will be far happier than such an
idle and useless spendthrift of time and abilities as I used to be among
the dissipations of the capital."

"Then enjoy the consciousness of duty well perfo