ere tales."

"Tales as beautiful to those who read them in their brains as the
'Arabian Nights' to common minds," said the pastor, smiling.

"Did not Satan carry our Savior to the pinnacle of the Temple, and show
him all the kingdoms of the world?" she said.

"The Evangelists," replied her father, "did not correct their copies
very carefully, and several versions are in existence."

"You believe in the reality of these visions?" said Wilfrid to Minna.

"Who can doubt when he relates them."

"He?" demanded Wilfrid. "Who?"

"He who is there," replied Minna, motioning towards the chateau.

"Are you speaking of Seraphita?" he said.

The young girl bent her head, and looked at him with an expression of
gentle mischief.

"You too!" exclaimed Wilfrid, "you take pleasure in confounding me. Who
and what is she? What do you think of her?"

"What I feel is inexplicable," said Minna, blushing.

"You are all crazy!" cried the pastor.

"Farewell, until to-morrow evening," said Wilfrid.

CHAPTER IV. THE CLOUDS OF THE SANCTUARY

There are pageants in which all the material splendors that man arrays
co-operate. Nations of slaves and divers have searched the sands of
ocean and the bowels of earth for the pearls and diamonds which adorn
the spectators. Transmitted as heirlooms from generation to generation,
these treasures have shone on consecrated brows and could be the most
faithful of historians had they speech. They know the joys and sorrows
of the great and those of the small. Everywhere do they go; they are
worn with pride at festivals, carried in despair to usurers, borne off
in triumph amid blood and pillage, enshrined in masterpieces conceived
by art for their protection. None, except the pearl of Cleopatra,
has been lost. The Great and the Fortunate assemble to witness the
coronation of some king, whose trappings are the work of men's hands,
but the purple of whose raiment is less glorious than that of the
flowers of the field. These festivals, splendid in light, bathed in
music which the hand of man creates, aye, all the triumphs of that hand
are subdued by a thought, crushed by a sentiment. The Mind can illumine
in a man and round a man a light more vivid, can open his ear to more
melodious harmonies, can seat him on clouds of shining constellations
and teach him to question them. The Heart can do still greater things.
Man may come into the presence of one sole being and find in a single
word, a singl