thed her with kind words. 'I said you would feel the thorns as you
passed,' he said. 'We cannot be free of them, we who are of mankind.'

'But oh,' she cried amid her tears, 'why,--why? The air of the earth is
in my eyes, I cannot see. Oh, what pain it is, what misery! Was it
because they loved him too much, and that he drew their hearts away?'

The Sage only shook his head at her, smiling. 'Can one love too much?' he
said.

'O brother, it is very hard to live and to see another--I am confused in
my mind,' said the little Pilgrim, putting her hand to her eyes. 'The
tears of those that weep have got into my soul. To live and see another
die,--that was what I was saying; but the child lives like you and me.
Tell me, for I am confused in my mind.'

'Listen!' said the Sage; and when she listened she heard the sound of the
children going back with a great murmur and ringing of pleasant voices
like silver bells in the air, and among them the voice of the child
asking a thousand questions, calling them by their names. The two
pilgrims listened and laughed to each other for love at the sound of the
children. 'Is it for the little brother that you are troubled?' the Sage
said in her ear.

Then she was ashamed, and turned from the joyful sounds that were
ascending ever higher and higher to the little house that stood below,
with all its windows closed upon the light. It was wrapped in darkness
though the sun was shining, the windows closed as if they never would
open more, and the people within turning their faces to the wall,
covering their eyes that they might not see the light of day. 'O
miserable day!' they were saying; 'O dark hour! O life that will never
smile again!' She sat between earth and heaven, her eyes smiling, but her
mouth beginning to quiver once more. 'Is it to raise their thoughts and
their hearts?' she said.

'Little sister,' said he, 'when the Father speaks to you, it is not for
me nor for another that He speaks. And what He says to you is--' 'Ah,'
said the little Pilgrim, with joy, 'it is for myself, myself alone! As if
I were a great angel, as if I were a saint. It drops into my heart like
the dew. It is what I need, not for you, though I love you, but for me
only. It is my secret between me and Him.'

Her companion bowed his head. 'It is so. And thus has He spoken to the
little child. But what He said or why He said it, is not for you or me to
know. It is His secret; it is between the little one and