for me to recognize at first; then slowly, that of the mother
became more distinct, and I saw _myself_ before me--myself, a wife and
mother; the visible answer to my heart's deepest, most secret cry. Still
the father's face was hidden, but as the vision floated by, he turned
and looked at me--the vision wife--with a look I had seen before, and I
uttered a cry as I recognized _Randolph Chance_.

IX

As I cried out, I turned slightly and, for a moment, lost the picture.
It was changed when again I saw it; Randolph Chance was still there, but
he no longer advanced toward the vision wife--she had faded into mist; he
came slowly toward me. There was a beautiful look on his face--I cannot
describe it--it was too holy to translate into language; but I could feel
it vibrate through my being until it set my very soul a-quivering. I had
no power of resistance--no wish to resist. I almost think I went toward
him, and he was as real to me as if he were in the flesh. I could feel
him as he put his arm around my waist, and his face touched mine. The
vision child had melted away; and we two were alone; I knew my heart
then; I knew I loved this man.

It was all over in a few moments, but such moments as make an eternity,
for they wipe out the past, even as death blots out a life, and they
open a door to the future. Up to that time I had never thought that,
without my knowledge or intent, my heart could slip from me--had never
dreamed that I, whose life had always been most commonplace--I, who had
had my share of wooing, but had never felt an extra heart-beat because
of it--no, never dreamed that I, this _I_, so practical and sensible,
could be carried off my feet by a vision. A vision, was it? Yes, and yet
real, too real in some ways, since it revealed my innermost thought. A
vision! And yet, even now that it had melted into air, I was clinging to
it, and instead of resenting its startling revelation of self, was
dwelling upon it, and in it, with a delight beyond words.

I sat there in my study, my head bent, and my hands loosely clasped in
my lap, living it over and over again. Out of doors, the soft gray dusk
had hushed the tired world in its arms. Within, the stillness of night
had settled down upon the room. By and by the moon rose above the great
waters of the lake, and on shore the trees were casting silent, solemn
shadows, made visible by the soft, hazy light that lay between them.
O