"I am _not_ in Heaven! But there will come a day, mother--I can laugh when I say it--when we shall go to heaven _together_ and pick blue flowers--_blue flowers_. They are so good to me here, but if your eye cannot bear the daylight you cannot see the buttercups and daisies." I did not learn till afterwards that in the spiritual language blue flowers are typical of happiness. The next question I asked her was if she thought she could write through me. "I don't seem able to write through you, but why, I know not." ("Do you know your sisters, Eva and Ethel?") "No! no!" in a weary voice. "The link of sisterhood is only through the mother. That kind of sisterhood does not last, because there is a higher." ("Do you ever see your father?") "No! he is far, far away. I went once, not more. Mother, dear, he'll love me when he comes here. They've told me so, and they always tell truth here! I am but a child, yet not so very little. I seem composed of two things--a child in ignorance and a woman in years. Why can't I speak at other places? I have wished and tried! I've come very near, but it seems so easy to speak now. This medium seems so different." ("I wish you could come to me when I am alone, Florence.") "You _shall_ know me! I _will_ come, mother, dear. I shall always be able to come here. I _do_ come to you, but not in the same way." She spoke in such a plaintive, melancholy voice that Mrs. Cook, thinking she would depress my spirits, said, "Don't make your state out to be sadder than it really is." Her reply was very remarkable. "_I am, as I am!_ Friend! when you come here, if you find that sadness _is_, you will not be able to alter it by plunging into material pleasures. _Our sadness makes the world we live in._ It is not deeds that make us wrong. It is the state in which _we were born_. Mother! you say I died sinless. That is nothing. I was born _in a state_. Had I lived, I should have caused you more pain than you can know. I am better here. I was not fit to battle with the world, and they took me from it. Mother! you won't let this make you sad. You must not." ("What can I do to bring you nearer to me?") "I don't know what will bring me nearer, but I'm helped already by just talking to you. There's a ladder of brightness--every step. I believe I've gained just one step now. O! the Divine teachings are so mysterious. Mother! does it seem strange to you to hear your 'baby' say things as if she knew them? I'm going now. Good-bye!"