To my amazement, instead of the tortured earth, blood-soaked and strewn with the mutilated bodies of what had once been comrades, bodies of friends and foes alike, I looked upon a landscape of surpassing beauty. I was resting, I discovered, on a little knoll beneath a magnificent oak tree. About me were other oaks giving me the impression of an English park or estate which seemed to stretch out to an immeasurable distance.

Birds were flying about among the trees, and their songs seemed to me the most exquisite music I had ever heard. The breath of many mingled flower scents came to me, and I glimpsed through the trees a terraced garden not far away, while in the distance could be seen lovely green hills. A little brook nearby sparkled and sang engagingly as it wound through the grove of oaks. The grass was a brighter, more vivid green than any I remembered having seen before, and the birds and flowers possessed colors some of which I had never known on earth. A soft, yet brilliant radiance shone over and around all objects within my vision.

“I must be enjoying an ether dream in a hospital, somewhere, and I hope it never ends,” was my first thought as I sat entranced with the beauty about me. Then, rising, I discovered a path, and there, standing with hands outstretched in welcome, wearing the old gray smile of camaraderie I remembered so well as a little lad, was Uncle Peter!

How can I express the rush of mingled emotions that swept in a cataclysmic waves over my being as I realized for the truth—I had passed through the door called “death.” For if this was Uncle Peter, then father, mother, the two older sisters adored me, and who became valiant workers with the V. A. D., after I had waved my farewells with what I fondly hoped was an air of nonchalant jollity and entrained for the Front—all, must still be on the other side of that “door.” And I was here “dead” with dear Uncle Peter!

“Steady, old lad,” said Uncle Peter.

“It’s you—It’s really you?” I seemed to gasp.

“Yes, really I; and now I shall be with you always, dear boy.”

“Tell me, how—” I stopped, looked about me, then became conscious of groups of people here and there. They seemed to be sending me waves of understanding sympathy, and a new strength like some subtle essence pervaded my being.