"And the evening at the mill when we sat in the dark together. To me that has always seemed a holy time. It was so different from the May party. How we romped and played that day. How the children laughed and sang! How I jumped the rope and--how you kissed me. I didn't count but it must have been a dozen times. And the wreath they put around my head. Wasn't it a pretty wreath? And we skipped away and went cross lots to my little schoolroom where you picked me up and carried me across 'Jordan's stormy floods.'" Again Lincoln laughed. Ann only smiled, but her face was bright with happiness. "But of them all, Ann--of all the wonderful days or nights the time I heard you singin' on the bluff comes first." "You have not forgotten that," she said softly. "Forgotten? I shall never forget--neither in this world nor in the world to come, for that was the night my soul, though I did not know what was the matter with me at the time, began unfoldin' itself from the old life." "Your soul," she repeated. "Abraham, we believe in souls, don't we?" "Yes." "And we believe that, though our bodies through the change called death, drop back into the pond, the new creature in another, better form lives on." "Yes, Ann--we believe it." She leaned against him, and breathed heavily for a moment, while he with puzzled, anxious face watched her. When she was rested she said: "Did you ever think how swiftly thought travels? We sit here together and our bodies do not move, yet we go to the river and the mill; we go to the woodland and the bluff. I have thought about it and I believe that souls can travel as quickly and as easily as mind--for souls have lain aside the weight of the earthly body, you know. Do you think souls can travel this way?" "I don't know, Ann." "I believe it," she said firmly. "Our souls can travel. And so my soul will always go wherever you are. If you are in Vandalia, or Springfield, my soul will be there. If you should get as far away as Chicago, even there my soul will be with you, and though you cannot see my face or hear my voice, you will know.