in resources, manifold in methods, hopeful in prospects; but one
thing you have not,--and that is peace. You are always tumultuous,
restless, apprehensive. You have nothing you can rely upon. You have no
rock under your feet. But the humblest, feeblest Christian has that which
is impossible to you. Callista had once felt the misery of maladies akin
to yours. She had passed through doubt, anxiety, perplexity, despondency,
passion; but now she was in peace. Now she feared the torture or the flame
as little as the breeze which arose at nightfall, or the busy chatter of
the grasshoppers at the noonday. Nay, rather, she did not think of torture
and death at all, but was possessed by a peace which bore her up, as if
bodily, on its mighty wings. For hours she remained on her knees, after
Caecilius left her: then she lay down on her rushes and slept her last
sleep.

She slept sound; she dreamed. She thought she was no longer in Africa, but
in her own Greece, more sunny and bright than before; but the inhabitants
were gone. Its majestic mountains, its rich plains, its expanse of waters,
all silent: no one to converse with, no one to sympathize with. And, as
she wandered on and wondered, suddenly its face changed, and its colours
were illuminated tenfold by a heavenly glory, and each hue upon the scene
was of a beauty she had never known, and seemed strangely to affect all
her senses at once, being fragrance and music, as well as light. And there
came out of the grottoes and glens and woods, and out of the seas, myriads
of bright images, whose forms she could not discern; and these came all
around her, and became a sort of scene or landscape, which she could not
have described in words, as if it were a world of spirits, not of matter.
And as she gazed, she thought she saw before her a well-known face, only
glorified. She, who had been a slave, now was arrayed more brilliantly
than an oriental queen; and she looked at Callista with a smile so sweet,
that Callista felt she could but dance to it.

And as she looked more earnestly, doubting whether she should begin or
not, the face changed, and now was more marvellous still. It had an
innocence in its look, and also a tenderness, which bespoke both Maid and
Mother, and so transported Callista, that she must needs advance towards
her, out of love and reverence. And the lady seemed to make signs of
encouragement: so she began a solemn measure, unlike all dances of earth,
with hands and