nd delicately had Ione chosen that song, sad though its burthen
seemed; for when we are deeply mournful, discordant above all others is
the voice of mirth: the fittest spell is that borrowed from melancholy
itself, for dark thoughts can be softened down when they cannot be
brightened; and so they lose the precise and rigid outline of their
truth, and their colors melt into the ideal. As the leech applies in
remedy to the internal sore some outward irritation, which, by a gentler
wound, draws away the venom of that which is more deadly, thus, in the
rankling festers of the mind, our art is to divert to a milder sadness
on the surface the pain that gnaweth at the core. And so with
Apaecides, yielding to the influence of the silver voice that reminded
him of the past, and told but of half the sorrow born to the present, he
forgot his more immediate and fiery sources of anxious thought. He
spent hours in making Ione alternately sing to, and converse with him;
and when he rose to leave her, it was with a calmed and lulled mind.

'Ione,' said he, as he pressed her hand, 'should you hear my name
blackened and maligned, will you credit the aspersion?'

'Never, my brother, never!'

'Dost thou not imagine, according to thy belief, that the evil-doer is
punished hereafter, and the good rewarded?'

'Can you doubt it?'

'Dost thou think, then, that he who is truly good should sacrifice every
selfish interest in his zeal for virtue?'

'He who doth so is the equal of the gods.'

'And thou believest that, according to the purity and courage with which
he thus acts, shall be his portion of bliss beyond the grave?'

'So we are taught to hope.'

'Kiss me, my sister. One question more. Thou art to be wedded to
Glaucus: perchance that marriage may separate us more hopelessly--but
not of this speak I now--thou art to be married to Glaucus--dost thou
love him? Nay, my sister, answer me by words.'

'Yes!' murmured Ione, blushing.

'Dost thou feel that, for his sake, thou couldst renounce pride, brave
dishonour, and incur death? I have heard that when women really love,
it is to that excess.'

'My brother, all this could I do for Glaucus, and feel that it were not
a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice to those who love, in what is borne
for the one we love.'

'Enough! shall woman feel thus for man, and man feel less devotion to
his God?'

He spoke no more. His whole countenance seemed instinct and inspired
with a divine