One evening in May there was a service in the church in which the congregation--Cyrus included--had joined in the singing. After the service he walked home alone. As he entered his own grounds the music of the last hymn echoed in his brain. Still humming it, he stopped and looked up at the stars. The solemn stillness of the night brought memories of his father. And as he stood there, gazing at the stars, he felt in the night air itself an unfamiliar element; something that awakened within him emotions unrelated to his outward senses. There was no moon, but from countless stars came flickering beams--faint greetings from other worlds. He seemed alone in the Great Silence--alone in the universe itself; in closer communion with hidden things. From out the darkness, mingling with the silence, yet almost silence itself, there came to him a breath--a murmur. It was not the evening breeze among the branches of the maples. It was the gentlest music, but not the echoes in his brain of the evening hymn. No--it came from far away. It seemed personal--directed to himself. For a time he stood without moving, every faculty alert. Not with his ears did he listen, but with a deeper sense, as of one spirit striving for communion with another. At last the music, the voice, the indefinable melody died away, gently, into the silence of the night. Patiently he waited. Then, after a time, when nothing came, he opened his eyes and lowered his face. In the continued silence about him he began to suspect that his own brain might have been deceiving him; that the message was from his own imagination. And was it a message? It had told him nothing. So far as he could divine it was a call--a prayer, but clearly to himself. Still wondering, he entered the house, did his customary little chores, then went upstairs to bed. For a time he lay awake, thinking, but once asleep his sleep was sound. From this sleep, however, he was awakened by what seemed a whispered voice within the room. He sat up in his bed, and spoke. "Who is it?" Then came--as before, when he was standing beneath the stars--the almost inaudible, far-away echo of a song. He listened, with every sense alert. And, as before, it seemed addressed distinctly to himself--an appeal to come. But where? So real was the entreaty that he obeyed an impulse, arose from his bed and prepared to dress. As he stood at his eastern window a few moments later, he heard again--or thought he heard--the alluring voice. A faint, cool light at the horizon was creeping slowly upward, along the edges of the earth.