With the first sound, the mist lifted and the Angel with the Flaming Sword came into the cupola and stood near them, smiling. Far out was the blue sky that bent down to meet a bluer sea, the sand on the shore was as white as the blown snow, and the sea-birds that circled around the cupola in the crystalline, fragrant air were singing. The melody blended strangely with the sound of the surf on the shining shore below.
The Angel with the Flaming Sword touched Barbara gently on the arm, and smiled. Barbara looked up, first at the Angel, and then at the Boy who stood beside her. The mist that had always been around him had lifted, too, and she saw that it was Roger, whom she had known all her life.
Barbara woke with a start. The sound of the golden bells was still chiming in her ears. "Roger," she said, dreamily, "we rang them all together, didn't we?" But Roger did not answer, for she was in her own little room, now, and not in the Tower of Cologne.
She slipped out of bed and her little bare, pink feet pattered over to the window. She pushed the curtains back and looked out. It was a keen, cool, Autumn morning, and still dark, but in the east was the deep, wonderful purple that presages daybreak.
Oh, to see the sun rise over the sea! Barbara's heart ached with longing. She had wanted to go for so many years and nobody had ever thought of taking her. Now, though Roger had suggested it more than once, she had said, each time, that when she went she wanted to go alone.
"I'll Try It"
"I'll try it," she thought. "If I get tired, I can sit down and rest, and if I think it is going to be too much for me, I can come back. It can't be very far—just down this road."
She dressed hurriedly, putting on her warm, white wool gown and her little low soft shoes. She did not stop to brush out her hair and braid it again, for it was very early and no one would see. She put over her head the white lace scarf she had worn to the wedding, took her white knitted shawl, and went downstairs so quietly that Aunt Miriam did not hear her.