re; and grown men cannot
puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they do here on land; for
those lessons all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton
Pool, out of the everlasting ground of all life and truth.

So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sundays she always went
away home, and the kind fairy took her place. And before she had taught
Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, and his skin was
smooth and clean again.

"Dear me!" said the little girl; "why, I know you now. You are the very
same little chimney-sweep who came into my bedroom."

"Dear me!" cried Tom. "And I know you, too, now. You are the very little
white lady whom I saw in bed." And he jumped at her, and longed to hug
and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was a lady born; so he
only jumped round and round her till he was quite tired.

And then they began telling each other all their story--how he had got
into the water, and she had fallen over the rock; and how he had swum
down to the sea, and how she had flown out of the window; and how this,
that, and the other, till it was all talked out: and then they both
began over again, and I can't say which of the two talked fastest.

And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked them
so well that they went on well till seven full years were past and gone.

You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all those seven
years; but the truth is, he was not. He had always one thing on his
mind, and that was--where little Ellie went, when she went home on
Sundays.

To a very beautiful place, she said.

But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it?

Ah! that is just what she could not say. And it is strange, but true,
that no one can say; and that those who have been oftenest in it, or
even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make people understand
least what it is like. There are a good many folks about the
Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went afterwards), who pretend to know it
from north to south as well as if they had been penny postmen there;
but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hundred and
ninety-nine million miles away, what they say cannot concern us.

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing people, who
really go there, can never tell you anything about it, save that it is
the most beautiful place in all the world; and, if you ask them more,
they grow modest, and hold the