"Frank, I believe you are the only one of our friends here who has never questioned me about the dear ones left behind; why is it?"
He smiled a peculiarly happy smile as he answered: "Perhaps it is because I already know more than you could tell me."
"I wondered if it was not so," I said, for I remembered well how my dear father had said, in speaking of my brother upon the first day of my coming, "He stands very near to the Master," and I knew how often he was sent upon missions to the world below.
I lay down upon my couch, on our return, with a heart overflowing with joy and gratitude and love, beyond the power of expression; and it seemed to me the tenderness in the Divine eyes that looked down upon me from the wall was deeper, purer, holier than it had ever been before.
"I will reach the standard of perfection you have set for me, my Savior," I faltered, with clasped hands uplifted to him, "if it takes all my life in heaven and all the help from all the angels of light to accomplish it;" and with these words upon my lips, and his tender eyes resting upon me, I sank into the blissful repose of heaven.
CHAPTER XV.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The Angel of Death shall carry me.
—[Nancy A. W. Priest.
So much occurred, and so rapidly, from the very hour of my entrance within the beautiful gates, that it is impossible for me to transcribe it all. I have been able only to cull here and there incidents that happened day by day; and in so doing many things I would gladly have related have unconsciously been omitted. Of the many dear friends I met, only a very few have been mentioned, for the reason that, of necessity, such meetings are so similar in many respects that the constant repetition, in detail, would become wearisome. I have aimed principally to give such incidents as would show the beautiful domestic life in that happy world; to make apparent the reverence and love all hearts feel toward the blessed Trinity for every good and perfect gift, and to show forth the marvelous power of the Christ-love even in the life beyond the grave.
This world, strange and new to me, held multitudes of those I had loved in the years gone by, and there was scarcely an hour that did not renew for me the ties that once were severed in the mortal life. I remember that as I was walking one day in the neighborhood of Mrs. Wickham's home, shortly after my first memorable visit there, I was attracted by an unpretentious but very beautiful house, almost hidden by luxuriant climbing rose vines, whose flowers of creamy whiteness were beyond compare with any roses I had yet seen in earth or heaven. Meeting Mrs. Wickham, I pointed to the house and asked: "Who lives there?"