With her new vision the world was more beautiful than anything she had ever imagined.  She could see everything upon its surface, even to the tiniest flower; but nothing was as it had seemed to her when she had been one of its inhabitants herself.  Each blade of grass, each tree and rock and brook, was something more than a mere blade or tree or rock or brook,—­something so much more strange and beautiful that it almost made her tremble with ecstasy to see.

“Now you can see,” said the voice; “before you were blind.  Now you understand what I meant when I said the objects one sees are of themselves nothing; it is what they represent that is grand and glorious and beautiful.  A flower is lovely, but it is not half so lovely as the thing it suggests—­but I can’t expect you to understand that.  Even when you were blind you used to love the ocean.  Now that you can see, do you know why?  It is because it is an emblem of God’s love, deep and mighty and strong and beautiful beyond words.  And so with the mountains, and so with the smallest weed that grows.  But we must look at other things before you go back—­”

“Oh, dear!” faltered Marjorie, “when I go back shall I be blind again?  How does one see clear when one goes back?”

“Through truth,” answered the beam, briefly.

But just then Marjorie found herself looking at some new sights.  “What are these?” she whispered tremblingly.

“The proofs of some pictures you will remember to have half seen,” replied the beam.

And sure enough! with a start of amaze and wonder she saw before her eyes the people who had sat in the crowded gallery with her before she had left it to journey here with her sunbeam guide; but, oh! with such a difference.

The baby she had thought so ugly was in reality a white-winged angel, mild-eyed and pitying; while the hump-backed boy represented a patience so tender that it beautified everything upon which it shone.  She thought she recognized in one of the pictures a frock of filmy lace that she remembered to have seen before; but the form it encased was strange to her, so ill-shapen and unlovely it looked; while the face was so repulsive that she shrank from it with horror.

“Is that what I thought was the pretty girl?” she murmured tremulously.

“Yes,” replied the beam, simply.

The next portrait was that of the silver-haired old lady whom Marjorie had thought so crooked and bowed.  She saw now why her shoulders were bent.  It was because of the mass of memories she carried,—­memories gathered through a long and useful life.  Her silver hair made a halo about her head.

“The next is yours,” breathed the voice at her side, softly.  “Will you look?”

Marjorie gave a quick start, and her voice quivered sadly as she cried,—­