“But when the rose-cloud floated away and the clear blue beyond of the very heavens, sprinkled with starry light, of which our firmament in a clear wintry night gives you but a feeble idea, I felt then the activity of a spirit. With the celerity of thought we traversed, in bands or alone, the infinite space, where we learned God in its beauty and vastness, and learning Him, adored Him. It was but a beginning, a moment of eternity that I had begun to taste, yet what years I seemed to myself to live! Once only I saw the Holy Jesus, and then He spoke so gently the words, ‘A little while, and where I am, you shall be also. Suffer your little one, also, to come unto me, and forbid her not; she will remember her first moments in heaven.’ “And then the next thing I remember was a dull, sluggish feeling, of almost pain, and a choking sensation; and then, your face, full of compassion, my kind Sister, beamed on me and consoled me. It had been a grievous change from heaven’s angels, but that I found one of mercy on earth.” “Very little like an angel,” said Sister Martha, with a smile; “but tell me now, how the angels look.” “That is just what I cannot do,” said Clara, “no more than I can tell how the soul looks that beams in your eye, but is not your eye,—how the tears well up from your tender heart, and soften but do not suffuse. Ah! with what body do they come? Something that without seeing, we love, and before which, body, and feature, and form, even in this life melt away. Even here we love what we never saw or can see, how much more in a world, where thought meets thought with purest eloquence, unimpeded by words or tones, where the glance of an eye speaks a clear reply to every question you ask, and gentle affections lapse your soul in perpetual joy. You love them, these angels, without knowing why, and without the need of sight to feed the feeling.” “You have seen very much, Clara,” said the pious sister, “I would I might die, to learn thus, how to live.” “Yes, life can never seem to me as it has done. I would that so it might have looked to my darling child. I would that she might have the memory of that fond embrace, and those touching words of the Divine Saviour.” Sister Martha never forgot this incident in her monotonous and yet ever varied existence. In the varieties of pain and suffering which she witnessed and relieved, she constantly remembered the young Clara and her eventful entrance into a life which promised so little to innocence and poverty. From time to time she traced her path, and administered such consolations and assistance as were consistent with her own duties, and when ten years after, Mrs. Neville sunk into a sleep of death, Sister Martha closed the eyes of the parent, and bore the weeping child to the convent of Chaillot, where she would have at least a shelter, and the kind care she needed.