to-day what different feelings animated
them! Orion had been the victim of blow on blow from Fate--Paula had
looked forward to his return with an anxious and aching heart; to-day
how calm were their souls, though both stood in peril of death.

The legend tells us that St. Cecilia, who was led away to the rack from
her marriage feast, even in the midst of the torments of martyrdom,
listened in ecstasy to heavenly music and sweet echoes of the organ; and
how many have had the same experience! In the extremity of anguish and
danger they find greater joys than in the midst of splendor, ease and
the intoxicating pleasures of life; for what we call happiness is the
constant guest of those who have within reach that for which their souls
most ardently long, irrespective of place and outward circumstances.

So these two in their prison were what they had not been for a long
time: full of heartfelt bliss; Paula with his letter, which he had begun
at the Kadi's house, and in which he poured out his whole soul to her;
Orion in the possession of her roses, on which he feasted his eyes and
heart, and which lay before him while he wrote the following lines,
which the kindhearted warder willingly transmitted to her:

Lo! As night in its gloom and horror fell on my prison,
Methought the sun sank black, dark forever in death.

I drew thy roses up, and behold! from their crimson petals
Beamed a glory of light, a glow as of sunshine and day!

Love! Love is the star that rose with those fragrant flowers;
Rose, as Phoebus' car comes up from the tossing waves.

Is not the ardent flame of a heart that burns with passion
Like the sparkling glow-worm hid in the heart of the rose?

While it yet was day, and we breathed in freedom and gladness,
While the sun still shone, that light seemed small and dim;

But now, when night has fallen, sinister, dark, portentous,
Its kindly ray beams forth to raise our drooping souls.

As seeds in the womb of earth break from the brooding darkness,
Or as the soul soars free, heaven-seeking from the grave,

So the hopeless soil of a dungeon blossoms to rapture,
Blooms with roses of Love, more sweet than the wildling rose!

And when had Paula ever felt happier than at the moment when this
offering from her lover, this humble prison-flower, first reached her.

Old Betta could not hear the verses too often, and cried with joy, not
at the poem, but at the won