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 performed, with liberty and
love," replied the governor. "And believe me, my friend, your father in
Paradise will no more grudge you all that is loveliest and best than I
do. You are on the road where every curse is turned to blessing."

The three marriages which Amru had promised to provide for, were
celebrated with due splendor.

That