A fresh wind sprang up and blew from the west; and as the blue spread, little white clouds arose and danced over it. Even before we could get used to so great a bliss, the heaven was all blue and fleecy-winged, and the happy trees rustled greenly. Again I dropped adown that darkling sea of death in life, and rose up again to find myself in a boat, floating, floating, on the wavelike ripples of a larger lake. So I knew it was the sea. I was near the shore, but yet not going in; and as I turned my eyes that way, I saw a height overhung with sky so blue! I have never seen such sky. But beneath and built upon the height was something more radiant than the sky itself: a temple with a wilderness of columns and vistas of columned shade within. The temple was of marble, mellowed and creamy, and rosy also, from some inner light, it seemed to me: something that glowed perennially and generated beauty as it glowed. And as I looked, wonder-stricken and alive with pure delight, one of the columns melted into air, and in the larger space it gave, stood you, my lady, clothed in white falling in folds more wonderful than the whorling of a bud within its sheath. You held a cup, and reached it to me with a smile divinely kind. I rose and plunged; the water closed over me, and sleep enwrapped me over. And then again I rose, and I knew I was in Paradise; for it was a sunny forest of newly-budded trees, and I heard strange music and knew you would be with me soon and that all would be infinitely well with us forever. I sank back into measureless peace, the perfect patience of waiting. As I lay there, one came toward me, and although I could not see his face, I knew, this is an angel! He asked me some question,--what, I cannot tell; but I was in love with my pleasure of mind, and told him what was only half true. (You know they were talking of truth and lies at the camp the other night, and I was puzzled. Now I know what it is to tell a half-truth.) But as I spoke, the leaves of the trees withered and fell, and the birds left their contented harmony and began screaming in discord. The angel was gone, and I knew that heaven was destroyed, and I had done it. I woke, grasping my arms so tightly with either hand that the pressure hurt. I was sobbing for breath. But I was alive, and my heaven lay yet before me.