“Like two vast dark wings, which grew darker and darker, and folded closer and closer over me, till at last they seemed to brood over me, as I have seen birds over their young. There was nothing strange or gloomy about them—nothing frightful. They seemed to have a right there, and I knew what it was; only I could not look at or attend to its approaches, because I waited and watched first for the soul of my darling to pass. I said it with my thought to the dark wings, and it replied—‘You shall pass away together.’ Then it came closer to me, like a watching mother to the bed, and I felt it come down on my eyes like a shadow, and then I seemed to sleep a long, long while. Such a sleep as one is half conscious of, and the refreshment of which he fully enjoys. “When I awoke, I found or felt myself in the folds, as it were, of a cloud. It was rose-colored, and seemed made of music—but the music was not set harmony either, and seemed composed of all natural soothing sounds. The whisper and rush of the wave on the sea shore, the murmur of the brooklet, or the sighing of the wind among the trees or over the long grass; all sounds that are associated with peace and loveliness filled and seemed to compose this cloud, for there was a mingling of senses, so to speak, or rather all that was most lovely in sound and color and odor embathed and permeated my being without my perceiving, far less analyzing, the source of my pleasure. At length, as if the natural body were changed for a spiritual one, I began to ascend and descend on the pillowy clouds above and about me, I moved voluntarily, and was conscious of an independent existence. Slowly came back the memory of life and of its relations. But though I remembered my baby entirely, I was without that agonizing anxiety for her with which I had died. There were many soft female faces about me as I lay there, and presently I felt that the Blessed Mother herself was among them, for she leaned over me and smiled; and then, I knew without her telling me, that my own baby was the one she held in her arms and gave to me. I cannot express to you the home-feeling that this gave me. All about me grew more soft and lovely, the forms and features of all more and more distinct, as if they were careful not to oppress the new-born soul with excess of beauty.