ind me to turn back?'

'No, for you will not wear the golden sash any more,' replied the
Master. 'You are no longer a little child, and you must no longer
depend on what touches your heart from the outside, but on what moves
it from within.'

'Well, I think I shall like that better, on the whole,' said Calladon.
'It will make me feel more like a man. But what is it that I ought not
to do, dear Master?'

'You ought not to lose faith in the lamp,' answered the Master, 'for
it gives you all you have, and all you are. And you ought not to
leave Abra, for Abra only is Abracadabra. And you ought not to light a
lamp of your own, for it would lead you into darkness.'

'Is that all?' asked Calladon.

'That is all I need tell you now,' said the Master; 'for if you obey
these three rules, you will not need to know more, and if you disobey
them, nothing more that I could say would help you.'

'I would have done all that without being told,' said Calladon; 'and
the only thing I don't like is having nobody to see or to speak to.'

'I have taken care about that,' replied the Master, with a smile, 'and
you will not be left entirely alone. When you wake up to-morrow
morning, you will find a little girl beside you. She is to be your
playmate and companion. She can help you to be happier and better than
you have ever been before; but she can also make you worse and more
miserable than if you were left by yourself. It will be according as
you treat her.'

'Perhaps I had better not have her,' said Calladon.

'You must run the risk; for without risk nothing that is really good
can be got,' replied the Master. 'She will not suggest either good or
evil to you; but if your thoughts are good she will know it, and will
help you to carry them out; and if your thoughts are evil, she will
think evil too, and will give you the means of doing it.'

'Does she know all this?' Calladon asked.

'She will know nothing except from you, and as long as you are
obedient to what I have told you, she will be obedient to you. But if
you become disobedient, she will sooner or later begin to rule you;
and whenever that happens you will be sure to suffer.'

'Then it all depends on me?' said Calladon.

'If harm comes, you will have no right to blame her,' the Master
answered; 'but if good comes, you will have no right to take the
credit to yourself.'

'Well,' said Calladon, after thinking awhile, 'the safest thing will
be not to think of myself at a