soon."

"He is a brave fellow, Robert," said Septimius, carelessly. "And I know
not, since life is so short, that anything better can be done with it than
to risk it as he does."

"I truly think not," said Rose Garfield, composedly.

"What a blessing it is to mortals," said Sibyl Dacy, "what a kindness of
Providence, that life is made so uncertain; that death is thrown in among
the possibilities of our being; that these awful mysteries are thrown
around us, into which we may vanish! For, without it, how would it be
possible to be heroic, how should we plod along in commonplaces forever,
never dreaming high things, never risking anything? For my part, I think
man is more favored than the angels, and made capable of higher heroism,
greater virtue, and of a more excellent spirit than they, because we have
such a mystery of grief and terror around us; whereas they, being in a
certainty of God's light, seeing his goodness and his purposes more
perfectly than we, cannot be so brave as often poor weak man, and weaker
woman, has the opportunity to be, and sometimes makes use of it. God gave
the whole world to man, and if he is left alone with it, it will make a
clod of him at last; but, to remedy that, God gave man a grave, and it
redeems all, while it seems to destroy all, and makes an immortal spirit
of him in the end."

"Dear Sibyl, you are inspired," said Rose, gazing in her face.

"I think you ascribe a great deal too much potency to the grave," said
Septimius, pausing involuntarily alone by the little hillock, whose
contents he knew so well. "The grave seems to me a vile pitfall, put right