rden,
fragrant with every picturesque plant and flower of the tropics, where
winding paths ran down to the very shores of the lake, whose silvery
sheet of water lay there, rising and falling in the sunbeams,--a picture
never for an hour the same, yet every hour more beautiful.

It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles the whole
horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water another sky. The
lake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where white-winged vessels
glided hither and thither, like so many spirits, and little golden
stars twinkled through the glow, and looked down at themselves as they
trembled in the water.

Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat, in an arbor, at the foot
of the garden. It was Sunday evening, and Eva's Bible lay open on her
knee. She read,--"And I saw a sea of glass, mingled with fire."

"Tom," said Eva, suddenly stopping, and pointing to the lake, "there 't
is."

"What, Miss Eva?"

"Don't you see,--there?" said the child, pointing to the glassy water,
which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden glow of the sky.
"There's a 'sea of glass, mingled with fire.'"

"True enough, Miss Eva," said Tom; and Tom sang--

"O, had I the wings of the morning,
I'd fly away to Canaan's shore;
Bright angels should convey me home,
To the new Jerusalem."

"Where do you suppose new Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom?" said Eva.

"O, up in the clouds, Miss Eva."

"Then I think I see it," said Eva. "Look in those clouds!--they look
like great gates of pearl; and you can see beyond them--far, far
off--it's all gold. Tom, sing about 'spirits bright.'"

Tom sung the words of a well-known Methodist hymn,

"I see a band of spirits bright,
That taste the glories there;
They all are robed in spotless white,
And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom, I've seen _them_," said Eva.

Tom had no doubt of it at all; it did not surprise him in the least.
If Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he would have thought it
entirely probable.

"They come to me sometimes in my sleep, those spirits;" and Eva's eyes
grew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low voice,

"They are all robed in spotless white,
And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom," said Eva, "I'm going there."

"Where, Miss Eva?"

The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky; the glow of
evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a kind of unearthl