se that make it so
much better. Somebody came here to _do_ something; and the rest
was, and happened, and grew. I can't bear things fixed up to be
exquisite!"

"That is the real doctrine of the kingdom of heaven," said a sweet,
cheery voice behind them. They all turned round; Miss Euphrasia
Kirkbright stood upon the door-stone.

"Being and doing. Then the surrounding is born out of the living.
The Lord, up there, lets the saints make their own glory."

"Then you don't think the golden streets are all paved hard,
beforehand?" said Sylvie. She understood Miss Euphrasia, and chimed
quickly into her key. She had had talks with her before this, and
she liked them.

"No more than that," said Miss Kirkbright, pointing to the golden
flush under the soft, piling clouds in the west, that showed in
glimpses beneath the arches of the trees and across the openings
behind the village buildings. "'New every morning, and fresh every
evening.' Doesn't He show us how it is, every day's work that He
himself begins and ends?"

"Do you think we shall ever live like that?" asked Ray Ingraham,
perceiving.

"'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of
their Father,'" repeated Miss Euphrasia. "And the shining of the sun
makes his worlds around him, doesn't it? We shall create outside of
us whatever is in us. We do it now, more than we know. We shall find
it all, by and by, ready,--whatever we think we have missed; the
building not made with hands."

"I'm afraid we shall find ourselves in queer places, some of us,"
said Dot. Dot had a way of putting little round, practical periods
to things. She did not do it with intent to be smart, or
epigrammatic. She simply announced her own most obvious conclusion.

"'The first last, and the last first.' That is a part of the same
thing. The rich man and Lazarus; knowing as we are known; being
clothed upon; unclothed and not found naked; the wedding garment.
You cannot touch one link of spiritual fact, without drawing a whole
chain after it. Some other time, laying hold somewhere else, the
same sayings will be brought to mind again, to confirm the new
thought. It is all alive, breathing; spirit in atoms, given to move
and crystallize to whatever central magnetism, always showing some
fresh phase of what is one and everlasting."

Miss Euphrasia could no more help talking so--given the right
circumstances to draw her forth--than she could help breathing. Her
whole nature