A VISION. 87 



and the living now were unborn, and the sad flood of 

 time had all swept back and left the flowers and fields as 

 in the long-gone days. In the pulpit stood the pastor of 

 those days, in the pews sat the congregation of those days, 

 in the corner pew sat the blue-eyed children of the elder, 

 and across the aisle the black-haired boys of the other 

 elder, and — and — and — what was that fairest of visions 

 that beamed on me in the clear sunlight by the south win- 

 clow? What mighty power called out of dust that form 

 like the form of the Madonna, that face like the face of 

 an angel ? 



As I write this to-night in my library in New York, I 

 look around me and seek in vain one connecting link 

 between the present and the past. Not even the por- 

 traits on the wall take me to those scenes, for portraits 

 grow to be inhabitants themselves, and do not seem like- 

 nesses of men and women that lived in other places. 

 Sometimes from the face of one or the other of the Ma- 

 donnas I catch a dreamy hint of the beautiful of the old 

 times, and oftener perhaps the Flora, who carries her load 

 of flowers over yonder, looks at me with a sharp, quick 

 look, and seems to say, " Yes, I am she " — but who she is 

 I know not. 



Over there where the sunlight came in she sat in her 

 purity, and the golden hair was brighter than the sunlight 

 on her white shoulder. She listened, and yet did not 

 listen, for she had always an absent look about her face, 

 so that it seemed as if she were talking with those unseen 

 to others. And doubtless so she was on that Sunday aft- 

 ernoon. And the boy of whom I spoke looked at her, 

 and he forgot the thunder of the pulpit, and, climbing on 

 the seat, put his head through a broken place in the rail 

 that surrounded it (the old square pew with rail and cur- 



