“For I was there at night, and there were many others with me, dream-people, who I couldn’t see. But I knew we were all gathered together to be put to some great test. I can see the night sky now above me, as I saw it in my dream, with the moon like a shining shield, and never a star. “And the test we were put to was to count the flowers of the Solomon’s Seal. “Do you know the plant, and the beauty of it? The flowers hang down in little bunches from a green stem that makes a rainbow span. I saw the white flowers as I bent down to seek them, and ten of them I counted as they hung there. And all the time that I was counting, there were small voices about me, like thin breaths of air. “‘Count us, count us,’ they were saying; ‘different and yet the same; count us.’ “It seemed to me there might be some more flowers hidden among the leaves. And I turned the leaves back with my hands, seeking. I can feel the coolness, and the firmness, of them now. But I could find no more flowers than those ten. Yet the thin voices were still whispering, ‘Count us, count us.’ “Then in the great clearness of the moonlight I saw that everything in the garden had its shadow, every flower I had counted was shadowed black upon the ground; and together I made twenty, and the clamouring of the voices ceased. Then in my dream it seemed to me the time had come when we must answer. We must have been standing in a long line, for I heard the voices of the many who were there, coming nearer and nearer, like a soft wind blowing through a wood. ‘Ten--ten--ten--ten,’ sounded the answers, and some one who seemed to be standing at my shoulder said ‘Ten.’ But when my turn came, I was filled with the strength of a great spirit, and cried out so that my voice filled all the hollow of the sky. “‘Twenty, I make it!’ I called out--‘Twenty! for substance is shadow, and shadow is substance, and what is--seems, and what seems--is.’ “I d’ know, I’m sure, if that makes sense or not, my dears; but I was given Solomon’s Seal for my wisdom.” The children sat quietly while she told her story. Even if they did not understand, they liked her voice. The logs glowed warmly beneath the hanging kettle, and the feather of steam would float out, and curl upwards from the kettle’s spout. But best of all her stories they liked one that told of a strange adventure in her dream. “That was when I was travelling in a distant land, my dears, when I was cast out for dead upon the desert. But the life in my spirit was hidden and secret, and the flame was not blown out. I was sent on a great mission away in a foreign land; I had papers with me, and I knew in my dream if I were discovered, it would be my life they would take. Then as my dream went on, I knew I was betrayed into the hands of my enemies, and on the morrow I was to die.