With feet that make no sound upon the floor.”
During the whole three weeks of preparation I was singularly prescient both by day and night, but only once did I mention this condition to Robert. I had lain down on my bed in the afternoon, weary with thought and feeling, and had fallen fast asleep. Then I heard a commotion in the house, the moving of furniture, the voices of men calling to each other, and, above all, I heard one strident voice of command, accompanied by a 130 kind of stamp upon the floor. Presently my room door was opened, and a remarkable man entered. He was tall and rather stout, his face was large and white, his dress clerical, his whole manner intensely authoritative. He walked round my room, and stood a moment and looked at me. It was an inquisitive look, quite without interest or kindness. Then he began to give orders, and I awoke.
To Robert I said that night, “I saw your father this afternoon,” and I described the man who was directing the moving of the furniture; laying particular stress upon the stamp in his walk. Robert looked at me with amazement, then told me that the peculiarity in the walk was caused by his father having a false leg. “He received an injury to his knee while playing golf,” he said, “and his walk with the artificial limb, was of the character you observed. But I never told you of it.”
“No, you never told me, Robert, but there are tiding bringers whom we do not summon. ‘God also speaks to his children in dreams, and by the oracles that dwell in darkness.’ We do not realize it, yet there is no doubt that our daily life is the care of angels, and the theme of their conversation. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are the heirs of salvation?”
“Then what of those who are not heirs of salvation?”
“There are no such unfortunates. God is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’ Once I heard my father quote that verse in the pulpit, and after a moment’s pause he cried out, ‘a great all that,’ and a very old man spoke out loudly, ‘Glory be to God! A great all. It covers every soul.’ Then Father quoted the words again, and there was a wonderful happiness, and the dull old chapel seemed to glow, and the faces of the people were lifted heavenward.”
And Robert called me a dear little Methodist, and drew me close to his side, and kissed me. “No wonder!” he continued, “my father felt no interest in you—but that was a strange dream, Milly.”
“Dreams are large possessions, Robert,” I answered; “they are an expansion of life, an enlightenment, and a discipline. I thank God for my dream life; my daily life would be far poorer, 131 if it wanted the second sight of dreams. The dreams I have had during this movement of ours have kept me serene and satisfied. They have shown me what is appointed, and things appointed come to pass.”
“In three weeks we shall see if your dreams come to pass.”
“Yes, but three weeks is a long time.”