“And will that be long?” the little Pilgrim cried, feeling in her heart that she would like to go to all the worlds and tell them of our Lord, and of His love, and how the thought of Him makes you strong; and it troubled her a little to hear her friends speak of the low skies and the short days, and the dimness of that dear country which she had left behind, in which there were so many still whom she loved.

Upon this Ama shook her head, and said that of that day no one knew, not even our Lord, but only the Father:  and then she smiled and answered the little Pilgrim’s thought.  “When we go back,” she said, “it is not as when we lived there; for now we see all the dangers of it and the mysteries which we did not see before.  It was by the Father’s dear love that we did not see what was around us and about us while we lived there, for then our hearts would have fainted:  and that makes us wonder now that any one endures to the end.”

“You are a great deal wiser than I am,” said the little Pilgrim; “but though our hearts had fainted how could we have been overcome? for He was on our side.”

At this neither of them made any reply at first, but looked at her; and at length the poet said that she had brought many thoughts back to his mind, and how he had himself been almost worsted when one like her came to him and gave strength to his soul.  “For that He was on our side was the only thing she knew,” he said, “and all that could be learned or discovered was not worthy of naming beside it.  And this I must tell when next I speak to the people, and how our little sister brought it to my mind.”

And then they paused from this discourse, and the little Pilgrim looked round upon the beautiful houses and the fair gardens, and she said—­

“You live here? and do you come home at night?—­but I do not mean at night, I mean when your work is done.  And are they poets like you that dwell all about in these pleasant places, and the—­”

She would have said the children, but stopped, not knowing if perhaps it might be unkind to speak of the children when she saw none there.

Upon this the lady smiled once more, and said—­

“The door stands open always, so that no one is shut out, and the children come and go when they will.  They are children no longer, and they have their appointed work like him and me.”

“And you are always among those you love?” the Pilgrim said; upon which they smiled again and said, “We all love each other;” and the lady held her hand in both of hers, and caressed it, and softly laughed, and said, “You know only the little language.  When you have been taught the other you will learn many beautiful things.”