“After that--I tried every day, and gradually the whole beauty of it came to me--because, you know, there are so many things to fret one, and it’s so splendid to feel uplifted above it all.” They tell me the morphia habit is wonderful! But I only said: “And so you really never suffer now?” “Oh!” she answered, “I often have the beginnings; but I just hold that thought and--it goes. I do wish--I _do_ wish you would try!” “Yes, yes,” I murmured; “yes, yes!” She looked so pathetically earnest and as if she would be so disappointed. “But just one thing: Don’t you ever feel that the knowledge that people have no bodies and don’t really suffer----” and there I stopped. I had meant to add--“blunts sympathy and dries up the springs of fellow-feeling from which all kindly action comes?” But I hadn’t the heart. “Oh! do put any questions to me!” she said. “You can’t shake my faith! It’s religion with me, you know.” “You certainly seem fitter and stronger every day. I quite understand that you’re being saved by it. And that’s the essence of religion, isn’t it?” She drew herself up and smiled. “Tom says I’m getting fat!” I looked at her. I must say that, for one who had no body, she was superb. After that I again left London and did not see her for two years. A few days after my return I asked after her at my sister’s. “Oh! haven’t you heard? The most dreadful tragedy happened there six weeks ago. Kitty and Willy” (they were the two eldest children) “were run over by a motor; poor little Kitty was killed on the spot, and Willy will be lame for life, they say.” Thinking of Kitty blotted out like that--a little thing all shyness, sensibility, and pranks, just as Minna had been at her age--I could scarcely ask: “How does poor Minna take it?” My sister wrinkled her brows. “I was there,” she said, “when they brought the children in. It was awful to see Tom--he broke down utterly. He’s been quite changed ever since.” “But Minna?” “Minna--yes. I shall never forget the expression of her face that first minute. It reminded me of--I don’t know what--like nerves moving under the skin. Dreadful! And then, ten minutes later, it was quite calm; you’d have thought nothing had happened. She’s very wonderful. I’ve watched her since, and I don’t--I really don’t believe she feels it!” “How is she looking?” “Oh! just the same--very well and handsome. Rather too fat.”