someone in a warm, eager clasp, and I was guided along with an
infinitely tender yet masterful touch which I had no hesitation in
obeying. Step by step I moved with a strange sense of happy reliance
on my unseen companion--darkness or distance had no terrors for me.
And as I Went onward with my hand held firmly in that close yet
gentle grasp, my thoughts became as it were suddenly cleared into a
heaven of comprehension--I looked back upon years of work spread out
like an arid desert uncheered by any spring of sweet water--and I
saw all that my life had lacked--all to which I had unconsciously
pressed forward longingly without any distinct recognition of my own
aims, and only trusting to the infinite powers of God and Nature to
amend my incompleteness by the perfection of the everlasting Whole.
And now--had the answer come? At any rate, I felt I was no longer
alone. Someone who seemed the natural other half of myself was
beside me in the shadows of sleep--I could have spoken, but would
not, for fear of breaking the charm.

And so I went on and on, caring little how long the journey might
be, and even vaguely wishing it might continue for ever,--when
presently a faint light began to peer through the gloom--I saw a
glimmer of blue and grey, then white, then rose-colour--and I awoke-
-to find nothing of a visionary character about me unless perhaps a
shaft of early morning sunshine streaming through the port-hole of
my cabin could be called a reflex of the mystic glory which had
surrounded me in sleep. I then remembered where I was,--yet I was so
convinced of the reality of what I had seen and heard that I looked
about me everywhere for that lovely crimson rose I had brought away
with me from Dreamland--for I could actually feel its stem still
between my fingers. It was not to be seen--but there was delicate
fragrance on the air as if it were blooming near me--a fragrance so