Mattie never forgot what she had felt when she awoke on that miracle-morning,--never forgot, and never allowed herself to remember.... She came back to consciousness still swathed and steeped in the sweetness of her dream, arriving presently, with a little shock of joy, at the thought of the sweeter fulfilment which was to follow. At the moment, however, she found it difficult to believe that the latter could possibly be more concrete than the former. So real, so intense had been that experience of the spirit, that the senses also seemed to have been satisfied by it for the time being. She lay on for some time after she had told Kirkby of the beautiful journey which she had taken in the night, living it over again to fresh thrills of delight which were like little inward cries of pleasure. (_So_ they had looked and spoken, and held, and kissed....) It was not often, except in the case of illness, that she had allowed herself the luxury of staying in bed. Very occasionally she had yielded to it when life was pressing too hardly upon her, watching the hours drift by with a hopelessness which was in itself a sort of hope, knowing as she did that, when that phase was over, she would be able to take up existence again a little more cheerfully. But she had never yet stayed in bed because the moments in front of her were so rich and wonderful that she could afford to waste them.... A sort of radiance seemed to her to pervade the room, in which the earthly day had not yet quite prevailed, so that she felt that, if anybody should look in upon her, just then, they would see her through a wall of light. She had said to Kirkby that she was “back,”--back in her prison, she had meant,--speaking the word with a bitterness which had first driven him out, and then almost brought him back to comfort her; but he was barely out of the room before she was gone Canada-wards again. She had forgotten so much about Them, she said to herself, half-ashamed to have forgotten, and wholly enchanted by the reminder. She had forgotten Luke’s habit of cocking his head on one side as he talked, and Joe’s love of humming a tuneless tune, while he drummed out the beat of it on his knee. Maggie’s shrug of the shoulders, and Ellen’s trick of half-closing her eyes when she laughed, together with that little way she had of touching you affectionately when she sat beside you.... Joe’s eldest boy hummed, too, and Ellen’s baby shut its eyes in the same fascinating fashion. It put out its hands to you in the same way,--little, round, baby hands groping half-consciously for the comfort of human touch.