It all comes as a clouded vision before me as though I were half in the vision, and through it beginning a new and more desperate destiny of my own. It is the snowy morning of All Saints’ Day. Representatives of the Michael Clan, young and old, Horseshoe Brotherhood, Amazons and many others are at the crossing of Fifth Street and Capital Avenue, by the ancestral Blacksmith Shop. The horse of the conquering Avanel Boone is to be shod by that good sport, Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, as a sign of fealty, and in final preparation for the going forth against Singapore. Scattered among the Michaels are the long-haired, black-haired Boones, with the locks of both the men and women streaming back over their shoulders, after the manner and regulation of the Boones, and their left hands dyed crimson, as a perpetual reminder to themselves and all the world of certain strains of Red Indian ancestry. While the snow is blowing into the shop, white-haired Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, aided by his son, the Third, have taken the old shoes from the dainty feet of the white pony, and just as the old warrior is lifting a new shoe from the fire, the flames leap up, there is a music incredibly sweet and, with a great whirring of wings and terrible thunder, the Golden Book flies out of the fire and circles above these two clans and their satellites of renown. And the swords of the Amazons are out in the air in involuntary salutation, and the face of Avanel has the consecration of a nun, taking her final vows. I wonder if all her girlish escort, so wonderstricken, see, as I see. For to me, as I feel my feet sinking into the dust of the ancient grave, this horse and rider move heavenward a little, it seems as though Avanel’s horse’s hoofs no longer quite touch the ground; she is a sort of celestial lady centaur. She and her horse have one pair of wings that bind them together, and the wings are rays of light and the same color as the wings of the book and akin. And even while I look, the very glory of this vision of a young girl, receiving her commission from the unseen world, burns me down like the last embers of a campfire blown upon by a terrible wind from the skies. I am neither man nor weed nor flame any more but something less than these and doomed by the years. There is a flower of flame above her forehead that consumes my eyes; there are flowers of flame above the foreheads of all her girl companions.