may, to me my dream-life is far more attractive and beautiful than what
you term Life. Forgive me if I hurt you, cousin. I'm peculiarly
constituted, perhaps, but I don't like this twaddle, and I can't help
it! Everything in England is so beautiful, and yet its society seems
so--so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one who longs to _live!_"

"To live, Opal? We are not dead, surely! What do you mean by life?"

And so her name was Opal! How curiously the name suited the voice! The
Boy, as he listened, felt that no other name could possibly have
matched that voice--the opal, that glorious gem in which all the fires
of the sun, the iridescent glories of the rainbow, and the cold
brilliance of ice and frost and snow seemed to blend and crystallize.
All this, and more, was in that mysteriously fascinating voice.

"To live, Alice?" echoed the voice again. "To live? Why, to live is to
_feel!_--to feel every emotion of which the human soul is capable, to
rise to the heights of love, and knowledge, and power; to sink--if need
be--to the deepest depths of despair, but, at all costs, at all hazards,
to _live!_--to experience in one's own nature all the reality and
fullness of the deathless emotions of life!"

The voice sank almost to the softness of a whisper, yet even then was
vibrant, alive, intense.

"Ah, Alice, from my childhood up, I have dreamed of life and longed for
it. What life really is, each must decide for himself, must he not?
Some, they say, sleep their way through a dreamless existence, and
never, never wake to realities. Alice, I have sometimes wondered if that
was to be my fate, have wondered and wondered until I have cried out in