struck the key-note of my conceptions as
to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall
enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be
other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres
to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may
be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally
are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set
adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more
trial to reach the shore,--as some grave theologians have
maintained,--if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead
devils who have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from
Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts
three or four score summers,--why, there must have been a few good
spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak
of must belong to them.

--I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,--said the
schoolmistress.

If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,--said I.

I never thought mine was anything,--said the schoolmistress.

How should you know?--said I.--People never hear their own voices,
--any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a
looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible
to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it
is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to
us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.--How
pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have
shapes like our former selves for playthings,--we standing outside
or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we
used to be to others!

--I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after
our earthly toys are broken,--said the schoolmistress.

Hush,--said I,--what will the divinity-student say?

[I thought she was hit, that time;--but the shot must have gone
over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]

Oh,--said the schoolmistress,--he must look out for my sister's
heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of
mine.

Do you mean to say,--said I,--that it is YOUR SISTER whom that
student--

[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on
the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel,
gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his
saucy-looking face in at the