Old Martin was dead of paralysis, after praying vainly to be spared to see his master’s child return and take possession of her own, for he had never believed in my suicide, an idea that Bainrothe had taken pains to propagate.  Nor did he lend any faith to my demise; knowing what he did, he believed that I had gone to England to get assistance from my mother’s relatives—­and Mrs. Austin had shared his opinion; she had nursed him to the last, faithfully, and Evelyn had been tolerant of his presence.  This, at least, was a consolation.

Sabra and Mrs. Clayton were not prosecuted, and I did, perhaps, the most inexorable act of my life when I refused to see either of them again, or assist them to more than a mere subsistence until health could be restored to the one and her “owners” written to in order that the other might be reclaimed to bondage, in which condition alone she, and such as she, can be restrained from wrongdoing.  “For there are devils on the earth,” says Swedenborg, “as well as angels, and they both wear human guise—­but by this may we know them, that no mortal ties bind them, no sphere confines them.  They walk abroad, the one solely to evil for its own sake, the other to universal good for the Father.  Such as these die not, but are translated, the one to hell, the other to heaven.”

Do we not right, then, to confine and enslave devils while they abide with us, or, if we can, to destroy them utterly?  And if we discern them, shall we not adore God’s angels?

These dwell not long among us, and their eyes are fixed always with a far, pure yearning for some sphere in which we have no part.  We feel this in our daily intercourse with them, for angels like these dwell often in the lowliest form about us, and our common contact with them thrills and awes us, though we scarcely realize that it is from them we have these sensations, or what renders them so far, though near at hand!

Little children, submissive slaves, sad women, unresisting men, patient physicians, great patriots, persistent preachers, martyr poets—­all these forms and phases in turn do our associate angels enter into and inform.

But ever the sign is there!  They are not ours!  Among us, but not of us—­set apart, here for a season be it, longer or shorter, ready at any time to spread their wings!  My sister was of these—­I did not recognize this truth in the time of my great sorrow, when the parting plumes had not revealed themselves to my undiscerning eyes.

A mighty touchstone has been applied to these earthly orbs since then, and the power to discriminate has been given to my soul.  As Gregory and Sabra were devils, I verily believe, so was Mabel one of Swedenborg’s angels.  Who shall gainsay me?  Who knows more than I on this subtle subject?  Not the wisest theologian that lives and breathes this earthly air!  Only those who never speak to enlighten us, and who have passed into infinite light and knowledge through the portals of the grave.