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A SOUL AND ITS BELOVED.
A soul was all tired unto death because love, which once glowed warm and red, had turned toward a face fairer and brighter than the one which encased it.
Long it dwelt upon that departure, until the time had come when it was all ready to leave the earth; but there was the beloved soul, which had gone from the right path.
While contemplating on the possible way of calling unto itself the beloved soul that had gone astray in its blindness, Death stood before it and called it to make ready for a long journey beyond the boundaries which it now knew.
Glad and willing the soul responded; but, casting its eyes behind for one moment, it beheld its beloved mate, walking in the mire, in its search after the will-o'-the-wisp for which it had left its home, and the soul was grieved sorely unto death. One step backward it made; but Death detained it, saying: "This way, sweet soul, you go wrong. See that golden path? There await you those who want you to be with them in parts beautiful and wonderful beyond that which you remember."
"Oh!" spake the soul, "What of her—my beloved? Where goes she?"
"Alone the path she now treads she has chosen, and it is pot in your power to draw her back one inch from that chosen path!"
"But, O Death!" quoth the soul, "the way before her is black and full of reptiles and evil creeping things, and she was so tender and beautiful. May I not change places with her, and will you not take her and leave me?"
"It is not so written," quoth Death. "Each soul chooses its own path and she has chosen hers."