Scarcely had she closed her eyes in slumber, when her couch was visited by a wild and wonderful dream. She dreamed she was standing within the porch, when a lady clad in shining raiment, emerged from the foldings of the hills and slowly approached her. The lady’s face was hidden beneath a snow-white veil of some transparent fabric, which though it seemed as translucent as water, yet, like water, gave an indistinctness to the object seen through it. But when the strange visitant spoke, her voice thrilled through Barbara’s inmost heart, for it was the spirit-voice which she had so often heard in her childhood—the voice of her dead mother. It seemed to Barbara that the lady stood close beside her, and then, without fear Barbara laid her head on the stranger’s bosom and clasped her arms around her tall form, while she rather _felt_ than heard these words: “Daughter lift up thine eyes, and behold the children which the Lord hath given unto thee.” Barbara raised her head and beheld a train of young maidens clad in the simple costume of the Saxon peasant, and linked together as it seemed by webs of the same transparent texture as that which veiled the lady’s face. Slowly they passed before her wondering eyes, fading into thin air as they became lost in the distance, but still succeeded by others, similarly clad and holding webs of the same delicate fabric, until Barbara’s brain grew giddy as the troop swept on and on unceasingly. Weary with gazing she closed her eyes, and when she re-opened them the maidens had vanished; only the strange lady in her shining garments was beside her, and she heard a low, silvery voice saying: “They who are called to fulfill a mission among nations must find their sons and their daughters beneath the roof-tree of the poor and the oppressed. Childless art thou, Barbara, yet the maidens of Saxony through yet uncounted ages shall call thee mother.” Barbara awoke from her dream, but so strongly was it impressed upon her memory, that she could not banish it from her thoughts for many days. But it had done its work upon her gentle spirit, for from that hour she felt that Heaven had some recompense in store for her, and though utterly unable to interpret her vision, she endeavored by redoubling her charities to find for herself children among the needy and sorrowful.