Then a young man entered; he hung his head; he seemed tired and sad. The orchestra was silent. The young man lifted up his voice. He told how misfortune had pursued him. His mother died of grief because the fields cultivated by her husband grew more and more sterile. He followed his mother's coffin with tears, then almost killed himself with work to support his aged father; but the father died in his turn, leaving his son so destitute, that he had not money enough to bury him. He then sold himself as a slave, and with the price of his liberty paid the last marks of respect to his father. Now he was on his way to his master to comply with the terms of the contract. He was going off, when a most beautiful woman appeared in his path. The young man gazed at her in mute admiration. "I have a favor to beg of you," said the woman. "I am alone and forsaken; accept me for your wife: I will be devoted and faithful to you." "Alas!" said the young man, "I have not a single possession, and even my body is not my own. I have sold myself to a master, to whom I am now on my way." "I am skilled in the art of weaving silk," said the unknown; "take me to your master; I will manage to make myself useful." "I consent with all my heart," said the youth; "but how comes it that a woman so beautiful as you is willing to take a poor man like me for her husband?" "Beauty is nothing in comparison with the qualities of the heart," said the woman. "In the second part, the husband and wife are seen working in their master's gardens,--the man cultivating flowers, the wife embroidering a marvellous tissue which she had woven. The master walked about, overlooking his slaves; he approached the young woman and examined her work. "Oh, what splendid stuff!" he exclaimed; "it is of inestimable value." "I would gladly exchange it for our liberty." The master agreed to the bargain, and set them free. Then the husband fell at his wife's feet; he thanked her enthusiastically for having thus delivered him from bondage. But the woman was transformed; she became so brilliant, that the young man, dazzled, could look at her no longer. "I am the celestial weaver," said she; "your courage and industry and your filial piety touched me, and, seeing your misery, I descended from heaven to help you. All that you may henceforth undertake shall succeed if you never depart from the path of virtue." So saying, the divine weaver rose to heaven and resumed her place in the house of the silkworms.[1]