"I don't sing; to-night was the first time I ever tried before any one but
Kitty. Did I sing well?"

"I can't believe you're real! I can't--"

"Don't! Don't!" she laughed. "Remember your promise."

And with that she ran away from the door where I stood, and I came
directly home. Home, to set down these notes; to wonder; to doubt; to
pinch myself and try to believe that I am alive.

I am alive. This that I have written is the truth! This is what I have
seen and heard since a common, puffing railroad train brought me from the
West and set me down in the land of miracles.

It is the truth; but out of that magic presence I cannot--I am as
powerless to believe as I am powerless to doubt.

God help me--it is the truth!




BOOK II.


THE BIRTH OF THE BUTTERFLY.

(_From the Autobiography of Helen Winship_.)