It was not such as masters of earth toil to paint. It was a living group that I saw.
Four figures stood there.
The first one was the face that I had just asked Chloe the semblance of. Loving past expression's power. The love emitted from those eyes brought tears into mine, and I heard one of them go dropping down, down into the cloudy deep below, as one day I had heard one falling elsewhere, on a cold stone.
Two hands were wafted out towards me, and the lips were just parted, as if waiting for coming words. I looked and listened, a little blinded by the glory and my tears.
"Go forth, dear child, to the work thy God appoints for thee to do!"
I looked up a little higher, just over the face of my mother, and, in holiest benediction, the Hand that had brought me up hither was laid upon her head. One stood beside her, leaning upon her shoulder. I recognized the face of the mysterious young girl.
"Will you do something for me on the earth, whence I have been called?" she asked.
The mighty voice that rang amid the clouds bade me "Answer." And tremulously, as if my poor earth-words had no place in the exceeding brightness, I gave an "I will."
"Comfort you the one afflicted. Tell him to look no longer into my grave. Let him not wander beside the marble foam that surges up from the Sea of Death, for that the Lord hath prepared another way for his footsteps. Lead him a little while on the earth, and then"——
I know not what more she would have spoken, for the Hand closed her lips. I sought my mother's face. It was gone. Another came forward. I felt involuntarily for the cold Hand that one night wandered under the sod in search of the face that now I saw in this picture let down from crystalline walls.