YESTERDAYS. 397 



line of crimson ; the green sleeping upon these ; the tender 
azure calm coming down, like a heaven of . 

Clearer and clearer grew the thinning sphere ; it was like 
fine blue air ; like a sky fragment ; it trembled, as a visible 
breath. 

"We held our own. Will it go, before it has done ? 

Thinner, thinner yet ; only the faintest, purest, gold-light 
and soft blue-green, and quivering blue ; the gold gives way ; it 
,s not wanted any more ; the mingling of the green is gone. 
[t is pure, holy, distant sapphire. 

Grandon Cope just lifted a finger, as if he would say, Look ! 
W~e would not  the air with a word,  toward the 
-. 

It was violet, now. We could not tell how the blue went by. 
Now it was neither water nor air ; but an ethereal flame, 
delicate, intense ; something we seemed to see, as it were, in- 
wardly ; it was such a far, impalpable beauty. Deepening, 
rarefying, receding. There was an impression of a marvel- 
Ions instant ; we felt what amethystine meant ; and it was 
gone. 

The silver rim stood empty. 

* I let my head fall down. I felt