She was with me, exulting where I was exultant, sad where I was sorrowful; still with her air of Guide and Teacher. She is my Egeria. She is my Inspiring Muse. I invoke her when I sing. But my song carried her away. Her own thoughts expressed by my utterance were returned to her, and she yielded herself up altogether to their power. Ah me! there is one language common to all on earth, and to all in heaven, and that is music. I exulted then on that bare, blasted rock. I triumphed. She joined me in it all. We exulted together. We triumphed. We mourned, we rejoiced, we despaired, we hoped, we sung alleluias in our hearts. The very winds were still. The very moon seemed to stay her course. All nature was hushed. She stood before me, white, slender, aerial, like a spirit from on high, as pure, as holy, as stainless. Her soul and mine were blended. We moved to one common impulse. We obeyed one common motive. What is this? Is it love? Yes; but not as men call love. Ours is heavenly love, ardent, but yet spiritual; intense, but without passion; a burning love like that of the cherubim; all-consuming, all-engrossing, and enduring for evermore. Have I ever told her my admiration? Yes; but not in words. I have told her so in music, in every tone, in every strain. She knows that I am hers. She is my divinity, my muse, my better genius--the nobler half of my soul. I have laid all my spirit at her feet, as one prostrates himself before a divinity. She has accepted that adoration and has been pleased. We are blended. We are one, but not after an earthly fashion, for never yet have I even touched her hand in love. It is our spirits, our real selves--not our merely visible selves--that love; yet that love is so intense that I would die for evermore if my death could make her life more sweet. She has heard all this from my Cremona. Here, as we stood under the moon, I thought her a spirit with a mortal lover. I recognized the full meaning of the sublime legend of Numa and Egeria. The mortal aspires in purity of heart, and the immortal comes down and assists and responds to his aspirations. Our souls vibrated in unison to the expression of heavenly thoughts. We threw ourselves into the rapture of the hour. We trembled, we thrilled, till at last frail mortal nature could scarcely endure the intensity of that perfect joy. So we came to the end. The end is a chorus of angels. They sing the divinest of songs that is written in Holy Revelation. All the glory of that song reaches its climax in the last strain: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!” We wept together. But we dried our tears and went home, musing on that “tearless eternity” which lies before us. Morning is dawning as I write, and all the feeling of my soul can be expressed in one word, the sublimest of all words, which is intelligible to many of different languages and different races. I will end with this: “Alleluia!” CHAPTER XXVIII THIS MUST END.