rom their beds and dressed by their
friends.

* * * * *

All Colonel Singelsby's teachings had told him that this was not so
different from the world he had left behind. Nevertheless, although he
was prepared somewhat for it, it was wonderful to him how alike the one
was to the other. The city, the streets, the people coming and going,
the stores, the parks, the great houses--all were just as they were in
the world of men. He had no difficulty in finding his way about the
streets. There, in comfortable houses of a better class, were many of
his friends; others were not to be found; some, he was told, had
ascended higher; others, he was also told, had descended lower.

Among other places, Colonel Singelsby found himself during the afternoon
in the house of one with whom he had been upon friendly, almost
intimate terms in times past in the world. Colonel Singelsby remembered
hearing that the good man had died a few months before he himself had
left the world. He wondered what had become of him, and then in a little
while he found himself in his old friend's house. It had been many years
since he had seen him. He remembered him as a benign, venerable old
gentleman, and he had been somewhat surprised to find that he was still
living in the town, instead of having ascended to a higher state.

The old gentleman still looked outwardly venerable, still outwardly
benign, but now there was under his outer seeming a somewhat of restless
querulousness, a something of uneasy discontent, that Colonel Singelsby
did not remember to have seen there before. They talked together about
many things, chiefly of those in the present state of existence in which
they found themselves. It was all very new and vivid upon Colonel
Singelsby's mind, but the reverend gentleman seemed constantly to forget
that he was in another world than that which he had left behind. It
seemed to be always with an effort that he brought himself to talk of
the world in which he lived as the world of spirits. The visit was
somehow unpleasant to Colonel Singelsby. He was impressed with a certain
air of intolerance exhibited by the other. His mind seemed to dwell more
upon the falsity of the old things than upon the truth of the new, and
he seemed to take a certain delight in showing how and in what everybody
but those of his own creed erred and fell short of the Divine intent,
and not the least disagreeable part of the talk to Colonel