"They remind me of high aims and the broad views of great minds,"
returned she, looking outward.

"You favor aiming high," I said, "I always thought so of you."

She turned her glance for a moment to me, and asked seriously: "How can
people aim low? Do you know the lines of Goëthe:"

"Thou must either strive and rise,
Or thou must sink and die."

Daughter of the immortals!

"I wonder what you will say of _my_ aims," I stammered.

"May you tell them? I should like very much to hear." And as she seemed
to bend from a queen into a womanly companion, I noticed my gift, the
brooch of Roman mosaic, on her breast.

While she listened, for I told her fully the story of my quest for the
highest things, its strange solution, and my present purposes, I was
surprised to discover that her intelligence was master of the whole
without effort. "O, I have often talked philosophy with Mr. Quinet," she
explained. Her spiritual eyes glistened with profound beautiful depths
as she looked down into the forest-shades before us. A color had
suffused itself over her face so lovely that the glorified creature
beside me seemed to surpass my intensest ideal.

"It _is_ the Voice of the Universe," she said, and her cheeks flushed,