It was doubled, and strongly sealed with wax. Then turning her form and face towards the girl, she thus spake: “Daughter, I have written--but before I give it thee, there is a condition. Thee must promise not to open this until thou hast looked upon the sun of thy eighteenth year. Dost agree to the terms?” “I? No, indeed--I cannot,” said Maria, bursting into a laugh, “delay would make me so anxious to know what it contained, that I should die of curiosity, long before the time.” “Daughter, thou art a child of destiny--God wills it. It is hard--but there is a heaven hereafter. Agree to the condition, or the flames will devour the record. Promise, child, before thy God.” A short pause. Maria faltered; her cheeks turned to an ashy paleness; she tried to speak; her heart leaped up to her throat. “I promise,” was all that she could say. “It is thine,” said the Seeress, taking a piece of silver from the hand in which she placed the paper. “Daughter, good night.” And Maria rose immediately, left the dwelling, and hastened back to the hotel. But she came not as she went. There was a change in her whole nature from that moment. The plastic hand of the Divinity remoulded, as it were, her features. She gazed upon the letter, turned it over and over, with ill-concealed anxiety--and then, in the first involuntary burst of indignation at the conditions, cursed the Seeress and the hour of her own birth. This was disappointment in most provoking shape. The same night a dream disturbed her slumbers. We will relate it, as nearly as memory serves us, in her own language. THE DREAM. “A spirit came to me during a fearful tempest, and tendered me wings. I accepted them with feelings, if not with words, of gratitude. She flew, and beckoned me to follow. I then flew with her to the brow of a rocky cliff, where we both alighted. Here we were joined by a troop of my companions and kindred, who immediately struck up a chorus which rang through the arch of heaven, and brought back echoes still more musical. Methought I heard the voice of Gabriel mingling those answering sounds. I clapped my hands with an ecstasy of joy, when lo! all was silent, save the growling tempest beneath. They were gone. I dropped my head and wept. Then a horrible voice accosted me from the cavern below:--‘Thou wert my friend; thou art my enemy--begone!’ I reeled in the dread gloom that enveloped me, and uttered a scream for mercy. At that instant the lightning opened to me a fiery path. My wings lifted me up, and again, though now alone, I flew.