Angelica—Yes, Jean, (she speaks most solemnly) Mother says there is a world above this, that there really is; and now, it may be old Jacques has gone there, and if he has, I am sure I am very glad, for up there everything is beautiful and colored with all the colors in this opal, and everybody is happy there.
Jean—(Very sadly) Angelica, do you really believe all this?
Angelica—I did believe it before, and now I know it.
Jean—And does it make you glad to believe it?
Angelica—Yes (with a long ecstatic breathing); but if you believed it, I should be all the more certain of it, and if the belief made you glad, it would make me all the more glad.
Jean—But why, then, if your mother knew about this, did she not tell you before? Why did she not talk with you about it?
Angelica—Ah, Jean, that was the first thing I said. I don’t like to tell you what she answered.
Jean—But tell me; for am I not the same as yourself?
Angelica—She said she had not told me because—because—she was afraid I would fret to go there, and she did not want me to, she wanted me to be content to stay here with her. Besides, she said, it might make me blind to go there—I do not know why. But now father has gone; three days he has been gone; such a thing never happened before, and mother fears he has gone to The World Above and will never come back.
Jean—He will, of course,—unless—unless—a break in some blind alley has caught him!