“There will be another strong tie to draw you towards heaven, my brother.  Our spirits will not be divided.  I shall still live in your memory—­still visit you in dreams.  Your love for me will grow stronger, for it will never know diminution or decay.”

She paused for a few seconds, and folded her poor wasted hands together, whilst a serene smile passed over her wan features, lighting them with a holy joy.

“I had a dream last night, Frederic.  A beautiful dream.  If I have strength I will try and tell it to you.  I thought much of Death last night, and my soul shrunk within me, for I felt that he was near.  I did not fear Death while my heart was free from earthly love, but now he seemed to wear a harsh and terrible aspect.  I prayed long and fervently to God to give me strength to enable me to pass tranquilly through the dark valley; but in my heart I felt no response to my prayer.  Soon after this, the pains, that had racked me all yesterday, left me, and I fell into a deep sleep.  And then me-thought I stood in a narrow pass between two vast walls of black rock, that enclosed me on either side, and appeared to reach to the very clouds.  The place was lighted by a dim twilight that flowed through an enormous arch that united in the far distance these gigantic walls; an arch, high and deep enough to have sustained the weight of the whole world.  I felt like an atom in immensity, alone in that strange place.  Still as I gazed in bewildered awe upon that great gateway, a figure rose like a dim mist out of the darkness, and it grew and brightened into a real and living presence; its dazzling robes of snowy whiteness shedding a sort of glorious moonshine all around.  Oh, the beauty, the surpassing beauty of the heavenly vision! it filled my whole soul with light.

“Whilst I continued to gaze upon it with increasing awe and admiration, it addressed me in a voice so rich and melodious that it awoke echoes of soft music from those eternal rocks.

“‘Child of earth,’ he said, ’is my aspect so terrible that men should shrink from me in horror?’

“‘Not so,’ I exclaimed, in an extasy of joy.  ’Your face is like the face of the angel of the Lord, when he welcomes the beloved with a smile of peace into the presence of God.’

“’Yet I am he whom men regard as their worst enemy, and shrink from with cowardly fear.  Yes, maiden, I am Death!  Death, the friend of man, the conqueror of grief and pain.  I hold in my hand the keys of the unknown world.  I am the bright spirit who unlocks for the good the golden gates of eternal joy.’

“He took my out-stretched hands, and drawing me forward, bade me look through the black archway into the far eternity.  Oh, that glorious land, those rivers of delight—­those trees and flowers, and warbled songs—­that paradise of living praise!  I long, my brother, to break these bonds asunder, to pass the dark archway, and tread that heavenly shore.”