Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/277

 their lives to lessening, as far as lay in their power, the frightful mass of misery by which they found themselves surrounded.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "there were some things in which that distant past excelled the present. There is no longer opportunity for heroism. There are no longer islands, or even continents, for men to discover; nor for women are there fields of heroic labor."

"Would you, then, have ignorance and evil exist, in order to enjoy the privilege of applying a remedy?"

"Now you are laughing at me, and I deserve it. But, to return to what we were talking of before, how did your sister Maud,—do I pronounce it correctly?—how did she bear such a life as you are describing? Did it not break her health and spirits?"

"On the contrary," was my prompt reply, "she and Edith"—

"Edith!" exclaimed Reva, in a tone of evident surprise and interest. Is that a name,—a girl's name?"

"Yes, of course it is a girl's name; but where"—At this moment it flashed upon me, that, in my surprise, I had uttered the name just before Hulmar joined us.

Reva, seeing me hesitate, replied to my uncompleted interrogation by saying, that at the moment when I seemed to discover in her some resemblance, unexpected and perhaps startling, I had uttered what she took for the exclamation Iditha! meaning, It is she!

"I had no opportunity then of inquiring after the meaning of the exclamation," she continued; "but, for a special reason, I did intend to inquire."

"There are, indeed, special reasons why you should