re was cause for grief,
and the expressions and emblems of mourning were proper and appropriate.
But here, mourning would be out of place, for life has fulfilled its
promises. Its work is done, and nature has given the worn-out body rest.
That is all."

That sympathy and regret which the city had expressed for the young
dead was manifested only in decorum and respectful attendance at the
funeral. No one appeared to feel that it was an occasion for mourning.
How strange it all seemed to me, and yet there was a philosophy about it
that I could not help but admire. Only I wished that they believed as I
did, that all of those tender associations would be resumed beyond the
grave. If only they could be convinced. I again broached the subject to
Wauna. I could not relinquish the hope of converting her to my belief.
She was so beautiful, so pure, and I loved her so dearly. I could not
give up my hope of an eternal reunion. I appealed to her sympathy.

"What hope," I asked, "can you offer those whose lives have been only
successive phases of unhappiness? Why should beings be created only to
live a life of suffering, and then die, as many, very many, of my people
do? If they had no hope of a spiritual life, where pain and sorrow are
to be unknown, the burdens of this life could not be borne."

"You have the same consolation," replied Wauna, "as the Preceptress had
in losing her daughter. That daring spirit that cost her her life, was
the pride of her mother. She possessed a promising intellect, yet her
mother accepts her death as one of the sorrowful phases of life, and
bravely tries to subdue its pain. Long ages behind us, as my mother has
told you, the history of all human life was but a succession of woes.
Our own happy state has been evolved by slow degrees out of that
sorrowful past. Human progress is marked by blood and tears, and the
heart's bitterest anguish. We, as a people, have progressed almost
beyond the reach of sorrow, but you are in the midst of it. You must
work for the future, though you cannot be of it."

"I cannot," I declared, "reconcile myself to your belief. I am separated
from my child. To think I am never to see it in this world, nor through
endless ages, would drive me insane with despair. What consolation can
your belief offer _me_?"

"In this life, you may yearn for your child, but after this life you
sleep," answered Wauna, sententiously. "And how sweet that sleep! No
dreams; no waking to work a