When restored to consciousness she looked wonderingly about her, and then smiling in her bright, girlish way, said to John, "When, where and how did I die?"

When told she had not died she inquired: "Was I alive when Jesus came to me?" and being told she was, she continued, "He says tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee, and that I must see Ruth before I come to him; and tell her all about this—is she here? Oh no; what a goose I am; she is at home, way up in Galilee—way up in Galilee," she repeated, and then, kissing the hand of the mother, she smilingly said, "Oh, Aunty, do you think little birds will sing next summer, when I am gone, as they did when Ruth and I were little girls, we never thinking that we must some day part?" Then for a moment a bewildered look seemed to control her, when, brightly smiling again through her tears, she said: "Oh, how silly I am; soon we will live together again; what is this brief span of life, compared to an endless eternity? Tell me, Aunt Mary, did you see Jesus?"

"No, Magdalene, I did not."

"Why, he looked and spake just exactly as when he chided me ten years ago."

"Oh, dear me, just look at old Peter and the other men back there, weeping enough to break their necks because they think I am dying. Say, Peter, come here and tell me what you are weeping for."

"Because you look so heavenly."

"Did you think I looked heavenly when you used to peddle fish?"

"Yes, Magdalene, you looked sweet then, but you was so confounded mean."

She hesitated, and then said, "Why, Peter?"

"Well, Magdalene, you led me right into it, just as you do everyone you talk with."

Magdalene looked on poor Peter, who seemed to wilt and fade under the smiling searchlight of the now happy Jewess.

"John," she said quite firmly, "please relieve Aunt Mary by holding me in your arms while I talk."

When he had taken her she looked in his face and laughingly said, "Queer, isn't it, John? Once you wanted to love me and I would not let you, now I want you to love me and you will not."

John choked and sobbed and finally said, "I do love you, Magdalene; we all love you; the angels love you, and that is why they are waiting to take you home."

A sweet smile lingered on the swooning beauty's face while John gently passed his hand over her auburn waves, which seemed to awake her again, and she said, "Peter, where do you think Jesus is now?"

"I do not know, Magdalene, I am all at sea."

"Peter, he may be right here now and knowing all that we are thinking."

Peter dropped his jaw. Joseph craned his long neck, while Nicodemus, the disciples and bystanders all leaned forward, to catch, if possible, from the angel face the last gleam which might swing the gates of death ajar.

"I know," she continued, "for I have been talking with him."

At this they all drew near, when she said, "His death upon the cross was natural, simply the separation of himself from his body."

"Has he gone up to heaven, from whence he came?" inquired Joseph.

"Why, Joseph, you are worse than Peter; do you think heaven is up above the moon?"

"Magdalene, you know what Jesus said when alive—"

"When alive, Joseph; he is alive now and possibly hears every word you say."

"Be that as it may, Magdalene; he has said from the beginning, 'I came down from heaven.'"

Magdalene scowled, and with a painful effort bit her lip as she tried to form a convincing sentence, and then began: "Down in a well and up on a hill are material positions, while down in hell and up in heaven are spiritual conditions."

"Think of Jesus as living in a purely spiritual condition and volunteering to take on humanity and live with us as animals. In that he came down from on high to that low, hellish animal, condition of last Friday. And, Joseph, when you thought you were laying Jesus in your tomb, he was not necessarily there. I know that I was face to face with Jesus, and there are no scars on his hands or thorns in his brow."

Nicodemus, kneeling beside her, said: "I know you're weary, but can you answer this—If Jesus was not in his body when he spoke your name, how did you hear his voice?"

Her ready reply was: "You are not an apt scholar. Do you remember when you came to Jesus by night, in Bethany, and he explained how one could be born again? And now you're asking me if a body can talk. I do not know how to answer you; I know not the secret of animal existence, and much less that of spiritual life; but this much I do know, that sound and sight both create impressions. One is silent, the other is not, yet they are equally distinct. Will power, thought, joy, sorrow, truth are all noiseless, yet real, so why not suppose all spiritual life be the same. At the tomb he impressed me that I must see the disciples and see Ruth before I came home to him. I cannot explain how it was, but I am sure that Jesus was not in the body, and I do not know as I was."

As she closed her eyes the grizzly counsellor bowed and kissed the tips of her cold fingers, then one by one the listeners drew nearer in silence, but she awoke again.