with a pitiful look in her sweet eyes.
"My mother told me that her heart was so sick for me, she was allowed to
go; and she went and stood by me, and spoke to me, and I did not know
her. She came back so sad and sorry that they took her at once to our
Father, and there, you know, she found that it was all well. All is well
when you are there."

"Ah," said the little Pilgrim, "I have been thinking of other things--of
how happy I was, and of _them_, but never of the Father--just as if I
had not died."

The other smiled upon her with a wonderful smile.

"Do you think He will be offended--our Father? as if He were one of
us?" she said.

And then the little Pilgrim, in her sudden grief to have forgotten Him,
became conscious of a new rapture unexplainable in words. She felt His
understanding to envelop her little spirit with a soft and clear
penetration, and that nothing she did or said could ever be misconceived
more. "Will you take me to Him?" she said, trembling yet glad, clasping
her hands. And once again the other shook her head.

"They will take us both when it is time," she said. "We do not go at our
own will. But I have seen our Brother--"

"Oh, take me to Him!" the little Pilgrim cried. "Let me see His face! I
have so many things to say to Him. I want to ask him--Oh, take me to
where I can see His face!"

And then once again the heavenly lady smiled.

"I have seen Him," she said. "He is always about--now here, now there.
He will come and see you perhaps when you are not thinking--but when He
pleases. We do not think here of what we will--"

The little Pilgrim sat very still, wondering at all this. She had
thought when a soul left the earth that it went at once to God, and
thought of nothing more except worship and singing of praises. But this
was different from her thoughts. She sat and pondered and wondered. She
was baffled at many points. She was not changed as she expected, but so
much like herself still--still perplexed, and feeling herself foolish,
not understanding, toiling after a something which she could not grasp.
The only difference was that it was no trouble to her now. She smiled at
herself, and at her dulness, feeling sure that by and by she would
understand.

"And don't you wonder too?" she said to her companion, which was a
speech such as she used to make upon the earth where people thought her
little remarks disjointed, and did not always see the connection of
them. But her friend of h