rtunity! brief Journey so well
worth the taking! gentle Exile so well worth enduring!--thy bitterest
sorrows are but blessings in disguise; thy sharpest pains are brought
upon us by ourselves, and even then are turned to warnings for our
guidance; while above us, through us, and around us radiates the
Supreme Love, unalterably tender!

These thoughts, and others like them, all more or less conducive to
cheerfulness, occupied me till I had finished dressing. Melancholy was
now no part of my nature, otherwise I might have been depressed by the
appearance of the weather and the murkiness of the air. But since I
learned the simple secrets of physical electricity, atmospheric
influences have had no effect upon the equable poise of my
temperament--a fact for which I cannot be too grateful, seeing how many
of my fellow-creatures permit themselves to be affected by changes in
the wind, intense heat, intense cold, or other things of the like
character.

I went down to breakfast, singing softly on my way, and I found Zara
already seated at the head of her table, while Heliobas was occupied in
reading and sorting a pile of letters that lay beside his plate. Both
greeted me with their usual warmth and heartiness.

During the repast, however, the brother and sister were strangely
silent, and once or twice I fancied that Zara's eyes filled with tears,
though she smiled again so quickly and radiantly that I felt I was
mistaken.

A piece of behaviour on the part of Leo, too, filled me with dismay. He
had been lying quietly at his master's feet for some time, when he
suddenly arose, sat upright, and lifting his nose in air, uttered a
most prolonged and desolate howl. Anything more thoroughly heartbroken
and despairing than that cry I have never heard. After he had concluded
it, the poor animal seemed ashamed of what he had done, and creeping
meekly along, with drooping head and tail, he kissed his master's hand,
then mine, and lastly Zara's. Finally, he went into a distant corner
and lay down again, as if his feelings were altogether too much for him.

"Is he ill?" I asked pityingly.

"I think not," replied Heliobas. "The weather is peculiar
to-day--close, and almost thunderous; dogs are very susceptible to such
changes."

At that moment the page entered bearing a silver salver, on which lay a
letter, which he handed to his master and immediately retired.

Heliobas opened and read it.

"Ivan regrets he cannot dine with us to