“I should love to go to earth and kiss their eyes all open,” she cried. “And so would Moonbeam too. But we’re too young yet—far too young. Sometimes, but only just sometimes, mother has gone, and then she kisses them, and then they hear the angels sing, and see the lights of heaven. Mother kissed you before she went away, and it is that which made you begin to get better again.”
Just then the hound sprang up listening, and bounded towards the door and out into the hall. Sunbeam, understanding its joyous bark, ran after it. Next I heard the loving welcome, the nearest link that earth and heaven have.
“Father!” Such a thrill of pure love ran through the word that in it one learnt the whole inner secret of heaven. The least vibration of that tender, passionate voice could have moved anything but hard, sodden earth, too dull to understand its influence.
Soon afterwards they entered by the open door, he carrying her on his shoulder, and no queen ever seated on a golden throne looked half so happy or so proud as she.
There then I saw, or thought I saw, for the first time my rescuer, clad in strong, linked armour, such as Plucritus wore, that was all ablaze with light as his had been; not the light that dazzled, but that which made more clear. Now as I still looked I recognised him with a surprise as genuine as it was delightful.
“Virginius!”
“Genius!” He came forward extending his hand, with equally genuine pleasure, though less surprise than I had shown.
“You did not expect to see me?”
“You are so altered I did not know you.”
“In some ways I may say the same of you. Yet one can always trace a likeness in one’s friends—however much they alter outwardly.”