"To love!--love with our every power of being--is the only eternal
reality. From love springs thought; and thought and affection are
the flesh and blood of the spirit. The spirit grows upon what it
feeds, as does the body upon its material food; and to stint the
spirit of its food is a sad detriment to our after-life.

"A perception of the heavenly life should arouse us to a power of
loving every human being that we come in contact with, and make us
realize that to love and serve is the happiness of angels, and the
principle which conjoins men and angels to God."

When the last word was breathed, as it were, in a soft, holy
brightness, from Rosa's lips, Paul sealed them with a kiss. How much
he had learned from the perception of a mind that was so wholly
gentle and feminine, that its substance seemed all of love; of a
love that received the impression only of heavenly things!--while
he, with all of his brilliant talents and masculine understanding,
felt that his contact was with this hard outer world of material
facts and realities; and that oftentimes the very density of the
atmosphere in which his mind dwelt obscured and clouded the delicate
moral perceptions of his being.

But Rosa saw above him, and revealed to him those beautiful inner
truths that were to give form and character to his outer life. Yes;
Paul had uncongenial brothers and sisters, and his more refined
tastes and pursuits would have led him away from them. But Rosa,
with her womanly tact, and grace, and lovingness, led him out from
the mists of selfishness into the halo of a more genial and
beautiful light, and he felt his heart grow warm with an
inexpressible love.