“They are all born of the Great Circle,” my guardian Angel explained to me:  “and to them is given the power of communicating high thought or inspiration.  Among them are the Spirits of Music, of Poesy, of Prophecy, and of all Art ever known in all worlds.  The success of their teaching depends on how much purity and unselfishness there is in the soul to which they whisper their divine messages—­messages as brief as telegrams which must be listened to with entire attention and acted upon at once, or the lesson is lost and may never come again.”

Just then I saw a Shape coming towards me as of a lovely fair-haired child, who seemed to be playing softly on a strange glittering instrument like a broken cloud strung through with sunbeams.  Heedless of consequences, I caught at its misty robe in a wild effort to detain it.  It obeyed my touch, and turned its deeply luminous eyes first upon me, and then upon the Angel who accompanied my flight.

“What seekest thou?” it asked in a voice like the murmuring of the wind among flowers.

“Music!” I answered.  “Sing me thy melodies—­fill me with harmonies divine and unreachable—­and I will strive to be worthy of thy teachings!”

The young Shape smiled and drew closer towards me.

“Thy wish is granted, Sister Spirit!” it replied.  “The pity I shall feel for thy fate when thou art again pent in clay, shall be taught thee in minor music—­thou shalt possess the secret of unwritten sound, and I will sing to thee and bring thee comfort.  On Earth, call but my name—­Aeon! and thou shalt behold me.  For thy longing voice is known to the Children of Music, and hath oft shaken the vibrating light wherein they dwell.  Fear not!  As long as thou dost love me, I am thine.”  And parting slowly, still smiling, the lovely vision, with its small radiant hands ever wandering among the starry strings of its cloud-like lyre, floated onward.

Suddenly a clear voice said “Welcome!” and looking up I saw my first friend, Azul.  I smiled in glad recognition—­I would have spoken—­but lo! a wide immensity of blazing glory broke like many-coloured lightning around me—­so dazzling, so overpowering, that I instinctively drew back and paused—­I felt I could go no further.

“Here,” said my guardian gently—­“here ends thy journey.  Would that it were possible, poor Spirit, for thee to pass this boundary!  But that may not be—­as yet.  In the meanwhile thou mayest gaze for a brief space upon the majestic sphere which mortals dream of as Heaven.  Behold and see how fair is the incorruptible perfection of God’s World!”