they’re out there!’ waving her hand toward the lake. ‘Never, never, shall I see them again!’ and he, poor, old man, he jest sobbed and said: ‘Never, till the sea gives up its dead!’ At them words she gave a great cry--that’s the way the minister put it--she gave a great cry and she said: ‘My God! My God! I had forgotten--when the sea gives up its dead, and His words stand firmer than the everlasting hills!’ She threw herself upon her knees, and holding up her hands she cried out loud, ‘Lord, thou hast sent my soul down into hell, but for Thy great words, will I praise Thee forever!’ She turned and kissed the minister’s hand and blessed him for reminding her. ‘They are truthful children, and have long memories,’ she said, ‘and when the sea gives up its dead, they will give the promised sign, and I will join them, and we will all go on together. So I will watch and wait, just watch and wait for my dear ones’ sign!’ And that was full fifty years ago, for I was but eighteen then, and Myra Worden has watched at that lake’s side faithful ever since; though from that day people have called her mad, and I suppose she _is_, poor soul.” I bowed my head upon my hands; dully I heard Mrs. Bulkley going on about some bank’s failure, something about a fire that had followed close upon the failure, and the word ruin, many times repeated, but my real attention was fixed upon a picture that rose before me. I saw, as plainly as I ever saw anything in my life, a great, level plain, and far away against the angry sunset sky, a line of low unwooded hills encircled it. It was unspeakably dreary--no trees, no water, no rise and fall, dip or break in the monotonous, dead level of the ground. Far away to the left, in the growing darkness, I saw the towers and cupolas of a fair, white city, and from its distant gates a path was worn across the dismal plain--a path so faint, so narrow, it could only have been made by one lone traveler’s feet. At the very farthest end, and on either side, there were faint outlines as of fallen bodies, and there were broken urns, and jars, and some withered garlands; but for all its greater length, it was narrow, faint and bare. And while I looked, suddenly, at its opposite end, that nearest to the hills, there appeared the figure of that traveler whose weary feet had worn that piteous path. Behind her, the fair, white city; before her, the bleak and savage hills. The tall figure, in its sombre garments, seemed the very spirit of desolation. The face was turned away from me, but there was that in the figure which made my heart leap up in quick recognition, and then, so truly as you live, _then_ I heard a voice, clear and distinct, but seemingly very, very far away, and it said: “I am Myra, ‘she who weeps!’”