consequence in this house,"
answered Adam; "we do not heed them. Your father will wake when his
morning comes. Your mother, next to whom you are lying,----"

"Ah, then, it IS my mother!" I exclaimed.

"Yes--she with the wounded hand," he assented; "--she will be up and
away long ere your morning is ripe."

"I am sorry."

"Rather be glad."

"It must be a sight for God Himself to see such a woman come awake!"

"It is indeed a sight for God, a sight that makes her Maker glad! He
sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied!--Look at her once
more, and sleep."

He let the rays of his candle fall on her beautiful face.

"She looks much younger!" I said.

"She IS much younger," he replied. "Even Lilith already begins to look
younger!"

I lay down, blissfully drowsy.

"But when you see your mother again," he continued, "you will not
at first know her. She will go on steadily growing younger until she
reaches the perfection of her womanhood--a splendour beyond foresight.
Then she will open her eyes, behold on one side her husband, on the
other her son--and rise and leave them to go to a father and a brother
more to her than they."

I heard as one in a dream. I was very cold, but already the cold caused
me no suffering. I felt them put on me the white garment of the dead.
Then I forgot everything. The night about me was pale with sleeping
faces, but I was asleep also, nor knew that I slept.

CHAPTER XLIII. THE DREAMS THAT CAME

I grew aware of existence, aware also of the profound, the infinite
cold. I was intensely blessed--more blessed, I know, than my heart,
imagining, can now recall. I could not think of warmth with the least
suggestion of pleasure. I knew that I had enjoyed it, but could not
remember how. The cold had soothed every care, dissolved every pain,
comforted every sorrow. COMFORTED? Nay; sorrow was swallowed up in the
life drawing nigh to restore every good and lovely thing a hundredfold!
I lay at peace, full of the quietest expectation, breathing the damp
odours of Earth's bountiful bosom, aware of the souls of primroses,
daisies and snowdrops, patiently waiting in it for the Spring.

How convey the delight of that frozen, yet conscious sleep! I had no
more to stand up! had only to lie stretched out and still! How cold I
was, words cannot tell; yet I grew colder and colder--and welcomed the
cold yet more and more. I grew continuously less conscious of myself,
continuously more cons