Westward they traveled, westward, ever westward. The way was dark and sometimes dreary, and Eline felt like one awakened from a beautiful dream before it was ended.

Through the pine forests, over mountains, in deep valleys, and by mighty streams they traveled. Ever they had the harp to cheer the way, to urge their footsteps onward. For the path was untrodden where they went.

“There is a path,” the harper said, “a pleasant path and broad, but the journey is long and we must hasten on our way. To the setting sun, to the gleaming sea, we must go; nor may we seek a beaten track lest we be too late.”

A river there was in whose waters were reflected pictures of all that surrounded them—such crystal clear reflections that sometimes it seemed as if they looked at real things in the water mirrored in the things around them.

And on the waters grew beautiful lotus-flowers, lilies with cup-shaped leaves. In the blue and white petals of the lotus also there seemed to be reflections, so clear were they. The musician plucked one of the cup-like lily-pads and filled it with the water for Eline.

The still surface of the water shone like silver in its green cup as Eline held it. Then the musician played. Soft and low and sweet were the notes of that wonderful harp. Scarcely they rippled the surface of the water, and yet they vibrated, trembled, spread, until picture after picture came to the surface of the water in colors of every hue.

Scarcely may it be told what Eline saw in the magic cup in the water of remembrance. She seemed to see herself—and yet another—in picture after picture. Now she saw herself as part of a golden sea of selves which made but one self, so lifelike were they, so glorious was their unity. Then in life after life Eline seemed to see her other selves living and loving and working, sleeping and suffering and struggling. She saw that on a day she had made her great resolve to help the world. “I will return! I will! I will!”

And now she knew what things they were she had seemed to remember in the king’s garden of delight. Joyously, eagerly, willingly, she saw that she had determined to return to earth in body after body, to help the men of sorrow who struggled and slumbered and suffered. She saw that she had before so done; that her work remained unfinished, to be begun again where she had laid it down. There was suffering shown to her in the cup; there were sorrow and grief and pain. But she saw that it must all be, and was content. For at other times she had desired just such things that she might know how others felt them, that she might help them the more with understanding. Happiness she had taken to give to others, and she must repay the debt. She saw that all things were just, and when the musician said in a low voice:

“Will you yet proceed?”

“I will!” she said.

“Then drink the cup,” he said, “Drink!”

She drained the green cup of the lotus leaf until scarcely a drop remained, and with that draught she forgot all things that had been—the garden, the king, the journey and the vision, and the master harper—all were forgotten. Only there remained a dim remembrance as of a dream at dawn forgotten.

DOMES AND SPIRES

DOMES AND SPIRES