wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water, so shall each of us see
the door open before us, and enter in and be refreshed.'

For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more so for the
awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement--with stern lips and
upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at
you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of
darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out
of her senses, in that lonely place!'

Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn from
good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the
course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very
circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to
read one of their books upon the future state--heaven and hell; but I grew
after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me
to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw amazing visions,
which, so far from superseding, confirmed and interpreted the language of
the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking
that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.

Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and
shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the
visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour,
and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier
associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
and a sadder tinge.