And yet, and yet they had touched her heart, and moved her soul to rapture, and filled her eyes with tears.
She could not but confess to herself that she could have given no purer, sweeter, or loftier expression to her own woes, thankfulness, aspirations, and hopes of ever lasting life and glory, than this gifted creature had given to the utterance of her idolatry.

Surprise, unrest, nay, some little jealousy had been mingled with her delight at Gorgo's singing.

How was it that this heathen could feel and utter emotions which she had always conceived of as the special privilege of the Christian, and, for her own part, had never felt so fervently as in the hours when she had drawn closest to her Lord?
Were not her own sentiments the true and right ones; had her intercourse with these heathens tainted her?
This doubt disturbed her greatly; it must be based on something more than mere self-torture, for she had not once thought of asking to whom the two-part hymn, with its tender appeal, was addressed, when Karnis had first gone through it with her alone; nor even subsequently, when she had sung it with Gorgo--timidly at first, more boldly the second time, and finally without a mistake, but carried completely away by the beauty and passion of the emotions it expressed.
She knew now, for Karnis himself had told her.

It was the Lament of Isis for her--lost husband and brother--oh that horrible heathen confusion!--The departed Osiris.

The wailing widow, who called on him to return with "the silent speech of tears," was that queen of the idolater's devils whose shameful worship her father had often spoke of with horror.