Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-11-08

for the first time 4 door standing wide
open, and in the room thus revealed
and on bed, the counterpart of the one
on which l was lying, q lady lay, re-
garding me with a fixed and serious
look. The abrupt disclosure of such
vision almost took my breath away;
nevertheless I returned her gaze steadi-
| ~, and the longer I looked the more l
| became impressed with the idea that /
had seen her before; that some time
had intimately known her. But
memory refused to recall where and
when. Then / thought how strange it
was that Hannah had not told me OF an
other guest in the house, and specu-
lated on probable reasons for her singu-
lar silence. We lay thus regarding
each other for some time, but the situa-
ton soon became embarrassing, and [
half resolved to accost the stranger,
but something in her aspect deferred
me. I could not take my eyes from her
| face. She looked like one of those ideal
| lied pictures we make to ourselves of
our beloved dead, with the forms and
features we have known, but with that
! look of peace after storm, that air of
| Heavenly repOse after life's fretful
fever, that BELTS our conceptions of the
life beyond the grave.
/ Suddenly a great wave of emotion
! swept over me, and, unable longer to
| endure the strain, [ threw back the
! covers, sprang out of bed and walked
| toward the door. My mysterious VISA
Wis did the same. In the two or three
seconds that it took me to reach the end
of the room [ had time for quite chain
! of mental comment, for my thoughts
| seemed to form with the rapiditY of
| lightning, and [ felt with a certain
sense Of relief that the lady was an in
habitant of the same state of being as
| myself, and was evidently as anxious as
| was for an explanation of this strange
rencounter.
Thus impressed, began to speak,
when to my utter astonishment the open
door resolved itself into magnificent
pier glass that reached from floor to
ceiling, and showed me, not q stranger,
but my own image in its crystalline
depths. l stood for a moment motion
less, almost paralyzed. Was that in
| deed myself? l was fully conscious
that only a few hours before I had been
a pale, sad-faced, middle-aged woman,
worn with the battle of life, and now
here [ was, changed in a twinkling into
this fair and gracious being, with health
in every vein, grace in every movement,
and eyes full of joy and hope.
A frenzy of rapture took possession
of me. l pressed my face against the
glass to make sure that what ! saw was
really an image of myself. [ pushed
back the sleeves from my plump white
arms, and ran my fingers over the deli
cate, blue-veined flesh. Yes, it was all
true. There was no gainsaying it. It
was myself, that ideal self of which
hitherto [ had only caught glimpses in
the few exalted moments I had known.
My mind seemed also to have cast off its
! restrictions as we'll as my body. My
thoughts formulated themselves with
unwonted ease. That chaos of half
| formed sensations, in which heretofore
had passed my life, arranged itself
now into chain of orderly sequences,
and was entranced at the conscious
ness of the wide range of spiritual
vision had become possessed of. No
| more pent-up Uticas of thought and
feeling, but a bOundless universe was
mine to explore, unrolling in majestic
procession its multifOrm yet unwearying
| details. Aspirations that I had long
laid aside as hopeless swelled in my
heart anew; all that [ had once hoped
to do and to be famed up from its
ashes with renewed fire, and the dreams
that had gloriied my lost youth lowered
over me again, and I read in their
radiant eyes that they had come, this
time, to be fulfilled.
| The conviction flashed upon me that
| this was that other life toward which
the children of earth have, for imme-
mortal ages, turned their longing ewes,
and in the full security of this blessed
belief I went back in memory to my
earth life, scanning it as something from
which I had quite detached myself, and
could therefore Judge it, not in parts, but
as whole. It looked dark and sad enough
in contrast with the light and bloom in
which l stood, but as l retraced the in
cidents of my former career, a thousand
| things which had puzzled me became
! clear, and graduallyi+s real significance
| daWned upon my sense. Irealized with
startling clearness that could not af-
ford to lose one moment of that other
time, one item of that other experience.
Out of the dark, unlovely mold of that
| life the new had bloomed like a flower,
and as producer and product, cause and
| effect, I beheld them indissOlubly bound
| together, and blending into one.
| was recalled by the sound of voices
in the garden, and fastening to the win
dow saw group of people approaching
the house. This group was composed
of both grown people and children, and
though too far away to note them dis
tinctly, they seemed glad and joyous
company. 1 thought of the two from
whom had parted years agone in
agonies of sorrow. Could they be among
them? The thought electrified me, and
leaning out of the window singled out
two who wore, to my excited fancy, a
! familiar look, and as they came nearer
my conjecture became a certainty. Yes,
there they were, no longer with the pal
lor of death and decay upon them, but
informed with health in every Inca
ment, immortal in their youth and
| beauty.
I reached out my arms toward them
! Il cT1Sbed the roses aside in nv iOona-