There fell a long silence then between them.
'You've been reading aloud,' Mlle. Lemaire said presently. 'I heard the drone of the voice through the wall—-'
'Daddy was reading his new story to us,' the other said. 'It didn't disturb you?'
'On the contrary. I think it was the voice somehow that brought the vision. I listened vaguely at first, trying to sleep; then, opening my eyes suddenly, the room, as I told you, was full of stars. Their rays caught hold of me and drew these forces out of my very heart. I yielded, giving and giving and giving … such life flowed from me, and they carried it away in streams…. Oh, it was really like a divine sensation.' 'It was divine,' said Mother, but whether she meant the story or her friend's experience, she hardly knew herself.
'And the story—was it not about our little Bourcelles?' asked the other.
Mother held her hands up as though words failed her. She opened her arms wide. She was not quite sure of her voice.
'It was,' she said at length, 'but Bourcelles had grown into the universe. It's a fairy-tale, but it's like a great golden fire. It warmed my heart till my whole body seemed all heart, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It makes you see that the whole world is one, and that the sun and moon and stars lie in so small and unimportant a thing as, say, Jimbo's mischief, or Monkey's impudence, or Jinny's backwardness and absurdity. All are in sympathy together, as in a network, and to feel sympathy with anything, even the most insignificant, connects you instantly with the Whole. Thought and sympathy are the Universe—they are life.'
While Mother paused for breath, her old friend smiled a curious, meaning smile, as though she heard a thing that she had always known.
'And all of us are in the story, and all the things we think are alive and active too, because we have created them. Our thoughts populate the world, flying everywhere to help or hinder others, you see.'
The sound of a door opening was heard. Mother got up to go. Shafts of light again seemed to follow her from the figure in the bed.