So they live there in Matthew's house. And a handful besides understand and toil for the fairer order. And this will come; and then that New Village, in the clear upper spaces, will hang just above every village--nay, will come down to clothe it like a garment. When I had done, "Peter," I said--I nearly called him Matthew!--"these are the things that Miggy does not understand. And that she will understand." He knew. He said nothing; but he knew how it is written. "Peter," I said, "I suppose Miggy will never have been to your house?" I knew that she could not have been there. "Some day soon," I said--"before you go away--ask us to come there. I should like her to sit by your table and look from your window." For how can one be sure that divine non-interference is always divine? Peter drew his breath long. "Would you?" he said; "would you? So many times I've thought maybe that would make her think of me as if I _was_ me." Yes, that might help. If only Miggy knew how to shake hands as Elfa shook hands with Nicholas Moor, that might help, too. How did it begin, this pride of individualism in a race which does not know its own destiny save as the great relationships, human and divine, can reveal that destiny? But Peter knows! And the hope of the world is that so many do know. Since he said his grateful good night and rushed away, I have been trying to readjust my impression of Peter. For I can no longer think of him in connection with Miggy and the cannery and my neighbour's lawn and the village. Now he is a figure ranging the ample intervals of a field fraternal to the night and to the day. Fraternal, too, to any little moon-washed area, won from the void, where it is easy to be in conference with the spirit without and within. Truly, it is as if the meaning of the universe were passioning for the comradeship of hearts that can understand. XVII ADOPTION The big window of my sitting room is an isle of sirens on whose shore many of my bird neighbours are continually coming to grief. For, from without, the window makes a place of soft skies and seductive leaves where any bird might think to wing a way. And in that mirrored deep there is that curious atmosphere which makes In-a-looking-glass a better thing than the room which it reflects--an elusive sense which Little Child might call Isn't-any-such-placeness. I think that I might call it so too. And so, evidently, the birds would call it, for they are always trying to find there some path of flight.