However, I sat and knelt and stood and went through all the forms
along with the rest. The sunlight streamed in at the windows, and
lay coloured on the dusty floor, on bowed head and Sunday bonnet;
through one little white window, just opposite me, I could see a
sparrow bobbing up and down on the ivy. Then away sailed my spirit,
through the church wall, over the meadows, and into the copse; I
pushed my way through the underwood, and picked up a leaf here and
there, listening to the gentle voice of the wood-pigeon. And
then--you know there is one thought into which all thoughts
resolve--I walked with you, dearest, on the hilltops by Fiesole;
she, too, was there, and you both laughed at me because I tried to
dig up a wild orchid with a flint, and got my hands so dirty.

Then we had that long talk about the possibility of an after-life,
which began with the bulb of the orchid--do you remember?

"Nothing is lost in Nature," said my mother. "There is no such thing
as annihilation; death is surely transubstantiation."

"Perhaps then, after all," said I, "the noblest part of us, the
self, that invisible core which we call soul, is just a drop, as it
were, in a great soul-ocean, whose waves wrap creation, and into
which we shall fall. What's the matter, Constantia?"

"I can't listen to you any more, you prosy things; you make me
melancholy. Go and be waves if you like, you two; I'm going to have
white wings and be an angel!"

* * * * *