Now, in my sleep a strange thing happened unto me. For my own part, I account it nothing less than a Vision granted unto me by mercy and special grace of Heaven. Those who read of it may call it what they please. It was in this wise. There appeared before my sleeping eyes (but they seemed wide open), as it were, a broad and open champaign; presently there came running across the plain in great terror, shrieking and holding her hands aloft, a girl, whose face at first I could not see. She ran in this haste and terrible anguish of fear because there followed after her a troop of dogs, barking and yelping. Behind the dogs rode on horseback one whose face I saw not any more than that of the girl. He cursed and swore (I knew the voice, but could not tell, being in a dream, to whom it belonged), and cracked a horrid whip and encouraged the dogs, lashing the laggards. In his eyes (though his face was in some kind of shadow) there was such a look as I remembered in Benjamin's when he put the ring upon my finger--a look of resolute and hungry wickedness, which made me tremble and shake. Now, as I looked, the dogs still gained upon her who ran, and yelped as if in a few moments they would spring upon her and tear her flesh from her bones. Then suddenly, between her who ran and those who pursued, there arose an awful form. He was clad in white, and in his hand he bore a sword, and he turned upon that hunter a face filled with wrath. Lightnings shot from his eyes and a cloud of thunder lay upon his brow. At the sight of that face the dogs stopped in their running, cowered, and fell dead. And at the dreadful aspect of that face the hunter's horse fell headlong, and his rider, falling also with a shriek of terror, broke his neck, and so lay prostrate and dead. Then this dreadful minister of God's wrath turned from him to the flying figure, and lo! his face was now transformed; his eyes became soft and full of love; he smiled graciously; a crown of glory was upon his head; white robes flowed downward to his feet; his fiery sword was a palm branch: he was the Angel of Consolation. 'Have no more fear,' he said, 'though the waves of the sea rise up against thee and the winds threaten to drown thee in the deep. Among the ungodly and the violent thou shalt be safe; in all times of peril the Lord will uphold thee; earthly joy shall be thine. Be steadfast unto the end.' And then I looked again, those blessed words ringing in my ears; and behold! I saw then, which I had not seen before, that the flying figure was none other than myself; that he who cruelly hunted after with the dogs and the whip was none other than my husband; and that the Angel of Wrath, who became the Angel of Consolation, was none other than my father himself! But he was glorified! Oh! the face was his face--that, anyone could see; but it was changed into something--I know not what--so far brighter and sweeter than the earthly face, that I marvelled! Then the Vision disappeared, and I awoke.