the sepulchre that she designed!

"Surely, surely, such a one had nobler dreams! I can feel them in my
heart; I can see them with my sleeping eyes!"

As she spoke she seemed to be inspired; and her eyes had a far-away
look as though they saw something beyond mortal sight. And then the
deep eyes filled up with unshed tears of great emotion. The very soul
of the woman seemed to speak in her voice; whilst we who listened sat
entranced.

"I can see her in her loneliness and in the silence of her mighty
pride, dreaming her own dream of things far different from those around
her. Of some other land, far, far away under the canopy of the silent
night, lit by the cool, beautiful light of the stars. A land under
that Northern star, whence blew the sweet winds that cooled the
feverish desert air. A land of wholesome greenery, far, far away.
Where were no scheming and malignant priesthood; whose ideas were to
lead to power through gloomy temples and more gloomy caverns of the
dead, through an endless ritual of death! A land where love was not
base, but a divine possession of the soul! Where there might be some
one kindred spirit which could speak to hers through mortal lips like
her own; whose being could merge with hers in a sweet communion of soul
to soul, even as their breaths could mingle in the ambient air! I know
the feeling, for I have shared it myself. I may speak of it now, since
the blessing has come into my own life. I may speak of it since it
enables me to interpret the feelings, the very longing soul, of that
sweet and lovely Queen, so different from her surroundings, so high
above her time! Whose nature, put into a word, could control the forces
of the Under World; and the name of whose aspiration, though but graven
on a star-lit jewel, could command all the powers in the Pantheon of
the High Gods.

"And in the realisation of that dream she will surely be content to
rest!"

We men sat silent, as the young girl gave her powerful interpretation
of the design or purpose of the woman of old. Her every word and tone
carried with it the conviction of her own belief. The loftiness of her
thoughts seemed to uplift us all as we listened. Her noble words,
flowing in musical cadence and vibrant with internal force, seemed to
issue from some great instrument of elemental power. Even her tone was
new to us all; so that we listened as to some new and strange being
from a new and strange world. Her father's fa