with even more than his usual cordiality--

"Now our circle is complete."

"Excuse me from rising, Doctor," said Mrs. Wallingford, a smile of
welcome giving increased beauty to her countenance, as she offered the
hand that was free--the other held her babe, just three months old,
tenderly to her bosom.

"What have you been reading?" I asked, as I seated myself, and glanced
towards the volume which Mr. Wallingford had closed and laid upon the
table.

"A memorable relation of the Swedish Seer," he replied, smiling.

"Touching marriage in heaven," said I, smiling in return.

"Or, to speak more truly," he replied, "the union of two souls in
heaven, into an eternal oneness. Yes, that was the subject, and it
always interests me deeply. Our life here is but a span, and our brief
union shadowed by care, pain, sickness, and the never-dying fear of
parting. The sky of our being is not unclouded long. And therefore I
cannot believe that the blessedness of married love dies forever at the
end of this struggle to come into perfect form and beauty. No, Doctor;
the end is not here. And so Blanche and I turn often with an eager
delight to these relations, feeling, as we read, that they are not mere
pictures of fancy, but heavenly verities. They teach us that if we
would be united in the next world, we must become purified in this.
That selfish love, which is of the person must give place to a love for
spiritual qualities. That we must grow in the likeness and image of God,
if we would make one angel in His heavenly kingdom."

His eyes rested upon Blanche, as he closed the sentence, with a look
full of love; and she, as if she knew that the glance was coming, turned
and received it into her heart.

I did not question the faith that carried them over the bounds of time,
and gave them delicious foreshadowings of the blessedness beyond. As I
looked at them, and marked how they seemed to grow daily into a oneness
of spirit, could I doubt that there was for them an eternal union? No,
no. Such doubts would have been false to the instincts of my own soul,
and false to the instincts of every conscious being made to love and be
loved.

"The laying aside of this earthly investiture," said Wallingford,
resuming, "the passage from mortal to immortal life, cannot change our
spirits, but only give to all their powers a freer and more perfect
development. Love is not a quality of the body, but of the spirit, and
will remain in full force,