That evening the frost still remained, and as the night came on a mist fell upon the city. From the windows men looked out, and lo! the beautiful city so made spiritual was vanishing. One by one the great buildings, the tall spires, the lofty columns had faded into a white dream, dimmer, fainter, less and less perceptible, seen through a gentle envelope of whitening haze. This thing was of a sort almost to make one tremble as he looked upon it, for the city which had been silver had turned to mist, and the mist seemed fair to turn into a dream. There are those who say it did become a dream, and afterward descended. For wanderers in desert countries tell that at times they have seen some far city of dreams, alluringly beautiful, but evanescent, intangible, unattainable, trembling and floating upon the wavering air. Now when I saw the city thus fade away and disappear, I sat down at my table, and, as many men did that night, I wondered much at what I had seen. For surely the soul of the city had arisen. Then the Singing Mouse came and gazed into my face. "What you have seen is true," said the Singing Mouse. "There is no city now. It has gone. You have seen it disappear. Its soul has arisen. This does not often happen, yet it can be, for even the city has a soul if you can find it. "But if I say the city has gone, I mean only that it has left the place where once it was. That which once was, is always, corporate or not corporate. We err only when we ask to see all with our eyes, to balance all within our hands. Come with me, and I will show you where the city went." So now the Singing Mouse waved its hands, and I saw, though I knew not where I looked. I saw a country where the trees grew big and where the wild-fowl came. It was where the trees had never been felled, nor had the stones ever been hewn. The sky was blue, and the water was blue, except where it played and laughed, and there it was white. There was a small house, of a sort one has never seen, for none in the cities is like it. The blue smoke curling from the chimney named it none the less a home. I hardly knew what time or place we had come upon, for the Singing Mouse, whose voice seemed high and exalted, spoke as though much was in the past. "This is a Home," said the Singing Mouse. "Once there were no homes. In those days there was only one fire, and it was red. By this man sat. He sought not to see. "Once a man sat at night and looked up at the heavens, seeking to know what the stars were saying. He besought the stars, praying to them and asking them to listen to the voice of the water, and to the voice of the oaks and to the whispers of the grasses, and to tell him why the fire of earth was red, while the fire of the stars was white.