added: "For how long may we call our own any of these perishable joys?
A day, perhaps a year, at most a lustrum. But eternity is long, and
those who, for its sake, forget time and set all their hopes on eternity
--which is indeed time to the soul--soon cease to bewail the loss of any
transitory treasure, were it the noblest and dearest. Oh, would that I
could lead you to place your hopes on eternity, best of women and most
true-hearted mother! Eternity, which not the wisest brain can conceive
of!--I tell you, lady, for you are a philosopher--that is the hardest and
therefore the grandest idea for human thought to compass. Fix your eye
on that, and in its infinite realm, which must be your future home, you
will meet her again whom you have lost--not her image returned to you,
but herself."

"Cease," interrupted the matron, with impatient sharpness. "I know what
you are aiming at. But to conceive of eternity is the prerogative of the
immortals; our intellect is wrecked in the attempt. Our wings melt like
those of Ikarus, and we fall into the ocean--the ocean of madness, to
which I have often been near enough. You Christians fancy you know all
about eternity, and if you are right in that--But I will not reopen that
old discussion. Give me back my child for a year, a month, a day even,
as she was before murderous disease laid hands on her, and I will make
you a free gift of your cuckoo-cloud-land of eternity, and of the
remainder of my own life on earth into the bargain."

The vehement woman trembled with renewed sorrow, as if shivering with
ague; but as soon as she had recovered her self-command enough to speak
calmly, she exclaimed to the lawyer:

"I do not really wish to vex you, Johannes. I esteem you, and you are
dear to me. But if you wish our friendship to continue, give up these