Barbara made light of Anthony's dream, which seemed to her to be after
all but a reflection or an echo of earthly things tricked out with some
bizarre imagination. Was not this obvious? The house? A vague replica of
his own house. The river? Something copied from the Nile, delta and all.
The waterfalls? Niagara on a larger scale. The great trees? Doubtless
their counterparts grew in America. The brother and the babe--would he
not naturally be thinking of his brother and his babe? The thing stood
self-convicted. Echo, echo, echo, flung back in mockery of our agonised
pleadings from the cliffs of the Beyond.

And yet this dream haunted her, especially as it returned to him more
than once, always with a few added details. They often talked of this
supernatural landscape and of the great radiant fan which closed at
night and opened itself by day, wherewith it was illuminated. Barbara
thought it strange that Anthony should have imagined so splendid a
thing. And yet why should he not have done so? If she could picture it
in her own mind, why should he not be able to originate it in his.

She told him all this, only avoiding allusions to the child, the baby
Barbara whom they had lost. For of this child, although she longed
to ask him details as to her supposed appearance, she could not bring
herself to speak. Supposing that he were right, supposing that their
daughter was really growing up yonder towards some celestial womanhood,
and waiting for him and waiting for her, the mother upon whose breast
she had lain, the poor, bereaved mother. Oh! then would not all be worth
while?