her cavern, and there, with no midwife, alone, she gave birth to two sons, as a lioness throws off her cubs. She nourished her twins with her milk, she nursed them through childhood; and for nine years she stood by her husband in the gloom and the darkness. But Sabinus at last was discovered and taken to Rome. He surely would seem to have merited Vespasian's pardon. Eponina led forth the two sons she had reared in the depths of the earth, and said to the Emperor, "These have I brought into the world and fed on my milk, that we might one day be more to implore thy forgiveness." Tears filled the eyes of all who were there; but Caesar stood firm, and the brave Gaul at last was reduced to demand permission to die with her husband. "I have known more happiness with him in the darkness," she cried, "than thou ever shalt know, O Caesar, in the full glare of the sunshine, or in all the splendour of thy mighty empire." Who that has a heart within him can doubt the truth of her words, or think without longing of the darkness that so great a love illumined? Many a dreary, miserable hour must have crawled by as they crouched in their hiding-place; but are there any, even among those who care only for the pettiest pleasures of life, who would not rather love with such depth and fervour in what was almost a tomb, than flaunt a frigid affection in the heat and light of the sun? Eponina's magnificent cry is the cry of all those whose hearts have been touched by love; as it is also the cry of those whose soul has discovered an interest, duty, or even a hope, in life. The flame that inspired Eponina inspires the sage also, lost in monotonous hours as she in her gloomy retreat. Love is the unconscious sun of our soul; and it is when its beams are most ardent, and purest, that they bear most surprising resemblance to those that the soul, aglow with justice and truth, with beauty and majesty, has kindled within itself, and adds to, incessantly. Is not the happiness that accident brought to the heart of Eponina within reach of every heart, so the will to possess it be there? Is not all that was sweetest in this love of hers--the devotion of self, the transformation of regret into happiness, of pleasure renounced into joy that abides in the heart for ever; the interest awakened each day by the feeblest glimmer of light, so it fall on a thing one admires; the immersion in radiance, in happiness susceptible of infinite expansion, for one has only to worship the more--are not all these, and a thousand other forces no less helpful, no less consoling, to be found in the intensest life of our soul, of our heart, of our thoughts? And was Eponina's love other than a sudden lightning flash from this life of the soul, come to her, all unconscious and unprepared? Love does not always reflect; often indeed does it need no reflection, no search into self, to enjoy what is best in thought; but, none the less, all that is best in love is closely akin to all that is best in thought.