—Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard in a French hospital. Between two and three years old. Fell out of her chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient, gentle. Rough students round her, some in white aprons, looking fearfully business-like; but the child placid, perfectly still. I spoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the thrush’s even-song, that I hear it at this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards.—_C’est tout comme un serin_, said the French student at my side. These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be other things besides aërolites that wander from their own spheres to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more trial to reach the shore,—as some grave theologians have maintained,—if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead devils who have “died into life,” (to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three or four score summers,—why, there must have been a few good spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak of must belong to them. —I wish you could once hear my sister’s voice,—said the schoolmistress. If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,—said I. I never thought mine was anything,—said the schoolmistress. How should you know?—said I.—People never hear their own voices,—any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.—How pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have shapes like our former selves for playthings,—we standing outside or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we used to be to others! —I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call “play,” after our earthly toys are broken,—said the schoolmistress. Hush,—said I,—what will the divinity-student say? [I thought she was hit, that time;—but the shot must have gone over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.] Oh,—said the schoolmistress,—he must look out for my sister’s heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of mine. Do you mean to say,—said I,—that it is _your sister_ whom that student—