364 I GO A -FISHING. 



the Pemigewasset, I saw a vision of exceeding loveliness, 

 which you might have thought the rising mist above the 

 water, but which revealed to me a face of rare and per- 

 fect beauty ; and a smile of intense joy was on those 

 matchless features, as if they had brought with them a 

 memory of the light of heaven. I could not count the 

 years since the dust was heaped over those closed eyes 

 now bright with the light of blessedness. I could not num- 

 ber the moons that have waxed and waned since those 

 lips, closed, close shut, were pressed with their last ca- 

 resses. And now eyes and lips were smiling the lan- 

 guage of heaven. 



It was a vision of blessed days. I did not love Maud 



. But my friend, my almost brother, did, and his 



love was the adoration of boyhood. And she returned it. 

 And if there be among the dark books which the record- 

 ing angel has gathered in his fearful library, one page of 

 white glory, on that page will be found written in living 

 letters, letters that will live forever, the story of that gold- 

 en love. It perished ! Passed out of life, out of earth, 

 out of the sun and moonshine of this lower world, but who 

 dare say it passed not into some starry home, where God 

 hath appointed his children to love on forever and for- 

 ever ! aye, forever ! That is the word, written on the hu- 

 man heart in letters of fire, of glory, or of agony. 



They died on the same day, though a thousand miles 

 apart. The whitest wings of the angels wafted her home- 

 ward, and who shall tell the joy of meeting him there ! 

 She was brilliant, starry in the splendor of her young pure 

 beauty, and more brilliant, more starlike now, as she look- 

 ed at me, and turned her face archly away with that 

 smile on it as she looked back into the forest and seemed 

 to say to me, " Yes, he is there j" and I gazed and gazed 



