Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/31

Rh but if we were to question your son some day we might get an answer to your question. In similar cases people have been sent into a magnetic trance, and have said that, for the soul there are no such limitations as time and space, that it can be: where it will when it will, that the Author of the soul's being can alone regulate or limit its movements."

"Then my son can fly from one body to the other, the two bodies being on different planets at enormous and ever-varying distances apart, without much loss of time?"

"Without any loss. It would take you a thousand times as long to walk through that open door into this room as it will take him to come from the other side of the solar system."

"Thank you, doctor. I fear I have taken up too much of your valuable time with my questionings. After all, I am so much the mother that I am glad to hear that, but for a little stiffness and pain my boy will be well when he wakes."

"At this moment I made some movement and hurt my side, and cried out with the pain. I had never felt pain before. My cry brought mother and her companion to my side. Mother bade me be still and keep quiet, and Doctor Hildreth, the physician for our district, class-mother Hildreth's sister, looked into my eyes, and felt my pulse, and said to mother, 'He is quite out of danger; he needs no farther aid from me.'"

When the doctor had gone mother told me that in falling through the tree I had broken two ribs and got much bruised, and had been unconscious for several days, owing to having fallen upon my head. She told me that if I did not wish my wounds to hurt me I must keep still and they would soon heal.

In the next few days I found that father's hands had been cut with the last stroke of the wing of our air boat while trying to hold me up, and that if he had not let me fall into the tree I should probably have been killed by the same blow. Mother had clutched Emma, and held on until rescued by another air boat, and our flying fish had suffered serious damage and gone to be repaired."

From this it appears that accidents may happen even in the grand world of our diarist's dreams. A day or two later he resumes his narrative:—"I am back in Gaston's class. All my classmates have congratulated me on my fortunate escape. I begin to feel that I am of some importance in the world. Gaston notices the state of things and wisely puts me right, and makes my case a lesson at the same time. This, too, without hurting my feelings.

He says:—"You are very properly glad to see Charlie Frankston amongst you after his narrow escape from death, and he doubtless rejoiced to find himself with you again. Do not, however, make too much of a hero of Charlie. There was nothing heroic about the transaction except the bravery