“It is no occupation, lady, it is not even choice. I called Him light. Is it occupation or labor to the sun to send his rays through the crystal of this fountain, to the very pebbles in its bed? See how, of themselves they disclose, not only the beautiful, but the foul that harbors there; not only the sparkles that the falling drops strike from its rough sides; not only the pearly bubbles that merely rise, glisten for a moment, then break against the surface; not only the golden fish that bask in their light, but black and loathsome creeping things, which seek to hide and bury themselves in dark nooks below, and cannot; for the light pursues them. Is there toil or occupation in all this, to the sun that thus visits them? Far more would it appear so, were he to restrain his beams at the surface of the transparent element, and hold them back from throwing it into light. And what he does here he does in the next stream, and in that which is a thousand miles off, with equal ease; nor can any imaginable increase of their number, or bulk, lead us to fancy, or believe, that rays would be wanting, or light would fail, to scrutinize them all.” “Your theories are beautiful always, Syra, and, if true, most wonderful,” observed Fabiola, after a pause, during which her eyes were fixedly contemplating the fountain, as though she were testing the truth of Syra’s words. “And they sound like truth,” she added; “for could falsehood be more beautiful than truth? But what an awful idea, that one has _never_ been alone, has never had a wish to oneself, has never held a single thought in secret, has never hidden the most foolish fancy of a proud or childish brain, from the observation of One that knows no imperfection. Terrible thought, that one is living, if you say true, under the steady gaze of an Eye, of which the sun is but a shadow, for he enters not the soul! It is enough to make one any evening commit self-destruction, to get rid of the torturing watchfulness! Yet it sounds so true!” Fabiola looked almost wild as she spoke these words. The pride of her pagan heart rose strong within her, and she rebelled against the supposition that she could never again feel alone with her own thoughts, or that any power should exist which could control her inmost desires, imaginings, or caprices. Still the thought came back: “Yet it seems so true!” Her generous intellect struggled against the writhing passion, like an eagle with a serpent; more with eye, than with beak and talons, subduing the quailing foe. After a struggle, visible in her countenance and gestures, a calm came over her. She seemed for the first time to feel the presence of One greater than herself, some one whom she feared, yet whom she would wish to love. She bowed down her mind, she bent her intelligence to His feet; and her heart too owned, for the first time, that it had a Master, and a Lord.