ll the other things that I met with in Mizora.

"If you notice the custom of different grades of civilization in your
own country," said Wauna, "you will observe that the lower the
civilization the louder and more ostentatious is the mourning. True
refinement is unobtrusive in everything, and while we do not desire to
repress a natural and inevitable feeling of sorrow, we do desire to
conceal and conquer it, for the reason that death is a law of nature
that we cannot evade. And, although the death of a young person has not
occurred in Mizora in the memory of any living before this, yet it is
not without precedent. We are very prudent, but we cannot guard entirely
against accident. It has cast a gloom over the whole city, yet we
refrain from speaking of it, and strive to forget it because it cannot
be helped."

"And can you see so young, so fair a creature perish without wanting to
meet her again?"

"Whatever sorrow we feel," replied Wauna, solemnly, "we deeply realize
how useless it is to repine. We place implicit faith in the revelations
of Nature, and in no circumstances does she bid us expect a life beyond
that of the body. That is a life of individual consciousness."

"How much more consoling is the belief of my people," I replied,
triumphantly. "Their belief in a future reunion would sustain them
through the sorrow of parting in this. It has been claimed that some
have lived pure lives solely in the hope of meeting some one whom they
loved, and who had died in youth and innocence."

Wauna smiled.

"You do not all have then the same fate in anticipation for your future
life?" she asked.

"Oh, no!" I answered. "The good and the wicked are divided."

"Tell me some incident in your own land that you have witnessed, and
which illustrates the religious belief of your country."

"The belief that we have in a future life has often furnished a theme
for the poets of my own and other countries. And sometimes a quaint and
pretty sentiment is introduced into poetry to express it."

"I should like to hear some such poetry. Can you recite any?"

"I remember an incident that gave birth to a poem that was much admired
at the time, although I can recall but the two last stanzas of it. A
rowing party, of which I was a member, once went out upon a lake to view
the sunset. After we had returned to shore, and night had fallen upon
the water in impenetrable darkness, it was discovered that one of the
young men who had rowed