n, Chloe."

"Well, just one, honey!"

"Am I much like--do I look as my mother used to?"

"Blessed child! no, no more 'n I do; only ye've both got white faces
from the good Lord, and He didn't please to give Chloe anything better
than a black one."

"What did she look like?"

"Thee's not to talk one word more. Chloe must go and look after Master
Aaron's dinner; he doesn't like husks to feed on. Mistress Percival was
like an angel, when the Lord took her from the earth. I'm afraid old
Chloe wouldn't know her now, she's been so long with Seraphim and
Cherubim in the Great City with the light of the Celestial Sun shining
in her face. I'm afraid Chloe wouldn't dare to speak to her, if she was
to meet her in the shining street of the New Jerusalem."

"She would know you, though, Chloe."

"There isn't any night there, Miss Anna; she couldn't see me; I'm black
and wicked"; and Chloe dropped something upon my hand. It was a tear
from her great eyes.

"Your soul will be white, Chloe. Christ will make it so."

"Well, well, honey, don't you trouble yourself 'bout my soul. The Lord
made it, and I guess He'll take care of it, when it gets free from the
earth"; and Chloe went down to look after a fragment of the very earth
she was anxious to escape from.

I heard this child of "Afric's golden sands" singing a song to soothe
her soul among the dinner-deeds that she was enacting. Then I thought me
of the earth lying in the hollow of God's hand, and in some way I wished
that I might get in-between the earth and the Holding Hand, and a wisp
of the sweet hymn, "Nearer to Thee, my God," floated out from my heart's
voice, almost with music in it. And the wishing words melted into an air
of prayer. I felt the mighty Hand around me. I put myself fearlessly
into the loving depths thereof, engraved with lines of life, and slept
securely there. Did the divine fingers draw me a little more closely,
and press the lines engraven on the Hand into my soul, and leave an
impression of dreams there? I felt myself going swiftly on and up
through a skyey gradient, and the soft, balmy air, displaced by my
passing through, fell back into its own place with pearly music. I
wanted to open my eyes and see where I was going; but I could not. I was
passive in action, active in thought only. Then, the music growing
fainter and fainter as the atmosphere became more celestially rarefied,
I felt the supporting Hand going away from me. One after another th