n Elisabeth did,
and now realized that it was only when they two became as little
children--he by ceasing to play Providence to her, and she by ceasing to
play Providence to herself--that they had at last caught glimpses of the
kingdom of heaven.

So they walked hand in hand to Caleb Bateson's cottage, as they had so
often walked in far-off, childish days; and the cottage looked so
exactly the same as it used to look, and Caleb and his wife and Mrs.
Hankey were so little altered by the passage of time, that it seemed as
if the shadow had indeed been put back ten degrees. And so, in a way, it
was, by the new spring-time which had come to Christopher and Elisabeth.
They were both among those beloved of the gods who are destined to die
young--not in years but in spirit; her lover as well as herself was what
Elisabeth called "a fourth-dimension person," and there is no growing
old for fourth-dimension people; because it has already been given to
them to behold the vision of the cloud-clad angel, who stands upon the
sea and upon the earth and swears that there shall be time no longer.
They see him in the far distances of the sunlit hills, in the mysteries
of the unfathomed ocean, and their ears are opened to the message that
he brings; for they know that in all beauty--be it of earth, or sea, or
sky, or human souls--there is something indestructible, immortal, and
that those who have once looked upon it shall never see death. Such of
us as make our dwelling-place in the world of the three dimensions, grow
weary of the sameness and the staleness of it all, and drearily echo the
Preacher's _Vanitas vanitatum_; but such of us as have entered into the
fourth dimension, and have caught glimpses of the ideal which is
concealed in all reality, do not trouble ourselves over the flight of
time, for we know we have eternity before us; and so we are content to
wait patiently and joyfully, in sure and certain hope of that better
thing which, without us, can not be made perfect.

It was with pride and pleasure that Mr. and Mrs. Bateson received their
guests. The double announcement that Christopher was the lost heir of
the Farringdons (for Elisabeth had insisted on his making this known),
and that he was about to marry Elisabeth, had given great delight all
through Sedgehill. The Osierfield people were proud of Elisabeth, but
they had learned to love Christopher; they had heard of her glory from
afar, but they had been eye-witnesses of