o come clear, and to be
that great olden melody of the Song of Honour. And I knew, as in a
dream, that the Millions in that deep Country made an Honour and a
Rejoicing over this Wonder of Joy which did be come. But yet all to be
faint and half hid from me, and mine eyes to be as that they had no
power to open, and I to seem to be lifting alway upon strange waters of
unrealness. And there to be sweet and lovely odours, and these to be of
reality, and to come from the great Fields, where the flowers did alway
to grow about the passage ways of the Lifts; for the Lift even then to
be going upward through the great miles.

And mayhap I moved a little; for there came the voice of the Master
Doctor low and gentle to me; and bid me rest; for that all did be well
with the Maid. And surely, afterward, I did be gone into an haze, and
there to be then a seeming of days in which I half to live and half to
sleep, and to wonder without trouble whether I did be dead.

And then there to come days when I lay very quiet, and had no thought of
aught; and the Master Doctor oft to bend over me in this hour and that
hour, and to look keen into my face. And in the end, after strange
spaces, there bent over me another, and there lookt down upon me the
dear and lovely face of Mine Own, and the eyes did speak love into my
soul; yet did she be calm and husht. And I to begin again to live in my
body, and I made, mayhap, a little fumbling with my hands; for she to
take and to hold them; and life to come from her to me; and she to be
ever wordless and gentle; and contentment to grow in me, and presently a
natural slumber.

And there came a day when I did be let rise, and they that tended me,
carried me to one of the Quiet Gardens of the Pyramid; and they set me
there, and did seem to leave me alone. And there came One then around a
bush, and lookt at me a moment, as with an half shyness; only that the
love that did shine in her eyes, made the shyness to be a little thing.
And, truly, I knew that it did be Mine Own Maid; but I never before to
have seen Naani drest pretty as a maid. And I lookt to her, and knew
that she did be more dainty than even I to have known. And sudden I made
that I rise to come unto her; but she to run quick to me, that she stop
me of this natural foolishness; and she then to sit beside me, and to
take my head against her breast, and she not to deny me her lips; but to
be both a maid and a mother to me in the same moment.