“I had children in love,” she said, “but none that were born mine.”

“It is the same,” he said, “it is the same; and if one of them had sinned against you, injured you, done wrong in any way, would you have cast him off, or what would you have done?”

“Oh!” said the little Pilgrim again, with a vivid light of memory coming into her face, which showed she had no need to think of this as a thing that might have happened, but knew.  “I brought him home.  I nursed him well again.  I prayed for him night and day.  Did you say cast him off? when he had most need of me? then I never could have loved him,” she cried.

The painter nodded his head, and his hand with the pencil in it, for he had turned from his picture to look at her.

“Then you think you love better than our Father?” he said; and turned to his work, and painted a new fold in the robe, which looked as if a soft air had suddenly blown into it, and not the touch of a skilful hand.

This made the Pilgrim tremble, as though in her ignorance she had done something wrong.  After that there came a great joy into her heart.  “Oh, how happy you have made me!” she cried.  “I am glad with all my heart for you and your son—­” Then she paused a little and added, “But you said he was still there.”

“It is true; for the land of darkness is very confusing, they tell me, for want of the true light, and our dear friends the angels are not permitted to help:  but if one follows them, that shows the way.  You may be in that land yet on your way hither.  It was very hard to understand at first,” said the painter; “there are some sketches I could show you.  No one has ever made a picture of it, though many have tried; but I could show you some sketches—­if you wish to see.”

To this the little Pilgrim’s look was so plain an answer that the painter laid down his pallet and his brush, and left his work, to show them to her as he had promised.  They went down from the balcony and along the street until they came to one of the great palaces, where many were coming and going.  Here they walked through some vast halls, where students were working at easels, doing every kind of beautiful work:  some painting pictures, some preparing drawings, planning houses and palaces.  The Pilgrim would have liked to pause at every moment to see one lovely thing or another; but the painter walked on steadily till he came to a room which was full of sketches, some of them like pictures in little, with many figures,—­some of them only a representation of a flower, or the wing of a bird.  “These are all the master’s,” he said; “sometimes the sight of them will be enough to put something great into the mind of another.  In this corner are the sketches I told you of.”  There were two of them hanging together upon the wall, and at first it seemed to the little Pilgrim as if they represented the flames and fire of which she had read, and this made her shudder for the moment.  But then she