have laid the dust, they
were such a fountain of tears. When he saw Passion and Patience, each
one in his chair--"I am that child in rags," said Mr. Fearing; "I have
already received all my good things!" Also, at the wall where the fire
burned because oil was poured into it from the other side, he perversely
turned that fire also against himself. And when they came to the man in
the iron cage, you could not have told whether the miserable man inside
the cage or the miserable man outside of it sighed the loudest. And so
on, through all the significant rooms. The spider-room overwhelmed him
altogether, till his sobs and the beating of his breast were heard all
over the house. The robin also when gobbling up spiders he made an
emblem of himself, and the tree that was rotten at the heart,--till the
Interpreter's patience with this so perverse pilgrim was fairly worn out.
So the Interpreter shut up his significant rooms, and had this so
troublesome pilgrim into his own chamber, and there carried it so
tenderly to Mr. Fearing that at last he did seem to have taken some
little heart of grace. "And then we," said Greatheart, "set forward, and
I went before him; but the man was of few words, only he would often sigh
aloud."

4. "Dumpish at the House Beautiful" is his biographer's not very
respectful comment on the margin of the history. There were too many
merry-hearted damsels running up and down that house for Mr. Fearing. He
could not lift his eyes but one of those too-tripping maidens was looking
at him. He could not stir a foot but he suddenly ran against a talking
and laughing bevy of them. There was one thing he loved above
everything, and that was to overhear the talk that went on at that season
in that house about the City above, and about the King of that City, and
about His wonderful ways with pilgrims, and the entertainment they all
got who entered that City. But to get a word out of Mr. Fearing upon any
of these subjects,--all the king's horses could not have dragged it out
of him. Only, the screen was always seen to move during such
conversations, till it soon came to be known to all the house who was
behind the screen. And the talkers only talked a little louder as the
screen moved, and took up, with a smile to one another, another and a yet
more comforting topic.

The Rarity Rooms also were more to Mr. Fearing than his necessary food.
He would be up in the morning and waiting at the doors of thos