She felt as if her heart had till now been benighted and dark, and had
just disclosed some latent light--as if it had been withered and dry, and
was now blossoming in fresh verdure and brightly-colored flowers.

To act virtuously is granted even to those who, relying on themselves.
earnestlv strive to lead moral, just and honest lives; but the happy
union of virtue and pure inner happiness is solemnized only in the heart
which is able to seek and find a God--be it Serapis or Jehovah.

At the door of the forecourt Klea was met by Asclepiodorus, who desired
her to follow him. The high-priest had learned that she had secretly
quitted the temple: when she was alone with him in a quiet room he asked
her gravely and severely, why she had broken the laws and left the
sanctuary without his permission. Klea told him, that terror for her
sister had driven her to Memphis, and that she there had heard that
Publics Cornelius Scipio, the Roman who had taken up her father's cause,
had saved Irene from king Euergetes, and placed her in safety, and that
then she had set out on her way home in the middle of the night.

The high-priest seemed pleased at her news, and when she proceeded to
inform him that Serapion had forsaken his cell out of anxiety for her,
and had met his death in the desert, he said:

"I knew all that, my child. May the gods forgive the recluse, and may
Serapis show him mercy in the other world in spite of his broken oath!
His destiny had to be fulfilled. You, child, were born under happier
stars than he, and it is within my power to let you go unpunished. This
I do willingly; and Klea, if my daughter Andromeda grows up, I can only
wish that she may resemble you; this is the highest praise that a father