s into your heart to do or say, it will be well for
them,' the Sage replied: and he took her by the hand and led her into a
house she knew. She began to know them all now, as her vision became
accustomed to the atmosphere of the earth. She perceived that the sun was
shining, though it had appeared so dim, and that it was a clear summer
morning, very early, with still the colors of the dawn in the east. When
she went indoors, at first she saw nothing, for the room was darkened,
the windows all closed, and a miserable watch-light only burning. In the
bed there lay a child whom she knew. She knew them all,--the mother at
the bedside, the father near the door, even the nurse who was flitting
about disturbing the silence. Her heart gave a great throb when she
recognized them all; and though she had been glad for the first moment to
think that she had come just in time to give welcome to a little brother
stepping out of earth into the better country, a shadow of trouble and
pain enveloped her when she saw the others and remembered and knew. For
he was their beloved child; on all the earth there was nothing they held
so dear. They would have given up their home and all they possessed, and
become poor and homeless and wanderers with joy, if God, as they said,
would have but spared their child. She saw into their hearts and read all
this there; and knowing them, she knew it without even that insight.
Everything they would have given up and rejoiced, if but they might have
kept him. And there he lay, and was about to die. The little Pilgrim
forgot all but the pity of it, and their hearts that were breaking, and
the vacant place that was soon to be. She cried out aloud upon the Father
with a great cry. She forgot that it was a grief to Him in His great
glory to refuse.

There came no reply; but the room grew light as with a reflection out of
heaven, and the child in the bed, who had been moving restlessly in the
weariness of ending life, turned his head towards her, and his eyes
opened wide, and he saw her where she stood. He cried out, 'Look! mother,
mother!' The mother, who was on her knees by the bedside, lifted her head
and cried, 'What is it, what is it, O my darling?' and the father, who
had turned away his face not to see the child die, came nearer to the
bed, hoping they knew not what. Their faces were paler than the face of
the dying, upon which there was light; but no light came to them out of
the hidden heaven. 'Look! sh