ys coming across the meadows, winding tracks following
along beside the streams, faintly marked trails emerging from the
woodlands. But on the hillside the threads were more firmly woven into
one clear band of travel, though there were still a few dim paths
joining it here and there, as if persons had been climbing up the hill
by other ways and had turned at last to seek the road.

From the edge of the hill, where John Weightman sat, he could see the
travelers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering from time to
time by the different paths, and making the ascent. They were all
clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him; it
was like some old picture. They passed him, group after group, talking
quietly together or singing; not moving in haste, but with a certain
air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their way to an
appointed place. They did not stay to speak to him, but they looked at
him often and spoke to one another as they looked; and now and then one
of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt
they would like him to be with them.

There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed each of
them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the long ribbon of
the road for a little transient space, rising and receding across the
wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of aerial green and
gold and lilac, until it came to the high horizon, and stood outlined
for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness against the tender blue, before
it vanished over the hill.

For a long time he sat there watching and wondering. It was a very
different world from that in which his mansion on the Avenue was built;
and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real as anything he had
ever seen. Presently he felt a strong desire to know what country it
was and where the people were going. He had a faint premonition of
what it must be, but he wished to be sure. So he rose from the stone
where he was sitting, and came down through the short grass and the
lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people. One of them turned
to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an old man, under whose
white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw a suggestion of the
face of the village doctor who had cared for him years ago, when he was
a boy in the country.

"Welcome," said the old man. "Will you come with us?"

"Where are you going?"