embrace with her long lost infant. She was now leaning on him with one hand, while the other held the little hand that was leading them both on to that mystic future.
"What a simple effort death is," she whispered, "and how happy we are to have passed it so well. Now we are all together, Philip, I have not one wish left."
After traversing a space of level rock, they came to a long flight of steps, which they descended after their guide. Again a level stretch, and down another long range of stairs; it seemed as if they were passing into the very centre of the world, yet they felt no sense of fatigue.
At the foot of the eleventh range of stairs the beautiful guide paused, and said,—
"You have one more trial to pass through before you can enter my land, and there is no evading it; but we shall be with you to comfort you. We are coming to a wide and deep river, which flows through this dark passage. The philosophers, whom you term ancient, knew of it, as they knew a great many other secrets now lost to humanity, and they called it the Styx. Its real name is the River of Eternal Youth. It is cold as the most frozen of waters, but it will wash away all the years which have aged you and enfeebled your energies since you reached maturity. On this side of that river you stand as you quitted earth, with your earth particles restored to you in their imperfections. Those waters will dissolve them from you for ever, and leave your spirit body young and at liberty. You are now about to taste of the real bitterness of spirit birth; yet fear not to plunge in, for the reward is a mighty one."
A great horror fell upon the company as they heard
