It is exquisite pain (and delight too) for me to tell of that flight into the ether; for then I first realised how incomplete was the sum of my existence without this being. She was so gentle and yet so strong, so full of eager sympathy and yet so vigorous of character. She knew every weak point in my system, and bent herself to correct its weakness or protect me from its effects without making me conscious of her sacrifice. With power that I could not but acknowledge as the superior of mine, she played the companion and equal. I could have worshipped her almost as a divinity; but she modestly bent herself to my level, and veiled her superiority in her childlike playfulness. I shrank in fear from the implied familiarity, and could not bring myself to recognise except intellectually the common humanity and the difference of sex. For years I felt too much adoration to pass into love. It was indeed long before I could admit myself capable of her friendship. But gradually she led me to put more confidence in my powers, and to recognise the superiority of some of them. My intellectual admiration took a warmer glow that soon fused our intercourse into the most devoted friendship. So braced were we by our mutual help in our common pursuits that we seemed helpless, the one without the other. Yet the sense of sex was not stirred for years after the bond between us had grown inseverable. It was this flight that first awakened me to the wealth of her nature and her immeasurable power and desire of self-sacrifice. Like her people, she had none of the statuesque beauty or moulded regularity of feature that has swayed the thoughts and passions of European sex; but the spirit that shone through made the face divine. I rested almost as in a dream, as I felt the benignance of her soul; and before long I was able to look calmly over with her at the increasing depths of light through which we had come. Below us we saw valley and hill pearled with the gleam of wide-scattered houses; we could see the flash of streams and rivers as they broke through the darkness of forests or fell in snowy cascades; and around the coast the sea spun for the black fringe of rock a moving thread of surf. Around us rose the carolling of many voices to the gates of heaven. Song after song, anthem after anthem, burst forth from the various groups of our comrades. Buoyant were they as thistledown, revelling in the pure serenity of the upper air. For very joy I could have thrown myself among them and joined the harmony of their flight; but her glance was upon me, and I returned to thoughts of prudence.