leave the rough and dangerous path; and she accordingly went to
him of her own will and, placing her hand in his, left me without
any sign of regret, and I went on my way alone. Then lifting my
eyes to see whither my path led, I beheld it winding along the edge
of the cliff to an apparently endless distance, until, as I gazed
steadily on the extreme limit of my view, I saw the grey mist from
the sea here and there break and roll up into great masses of
slow-drifting cloud, in the intervals of which I caught the white
gleam of sunlit snow. And these intervals continually closed up
to open again in fresh places higher up, disclosing peak upon peak
of a range of mountains of enormous altitude.*

By a curious coincidence, the very morning after this dream, a friend,
who knew of my perplexity, called to

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* Always the symbol of high mystical insight and spiritual attainment--
Biblically called "the Hill of the Lord" and "Mount of God. " (Ed.)
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recommend a school in a certain convent as one suitable for my child.
There were, however, insuperable objections to the scheme.

--Paris, Nov. 3, 1877





XI. A Lion In the Way