all the house had absolutely nothing in it but a huge, ugly, poisonous spider hanging to the wall with her hands.  ‘Is there but one spider in all this spacious room?’ asked the Interpreter.  And the water stood in Christiana’s eyes; she had come by this time thus far on her journey also.  She was a woman of a quick apprehension, and the water stood in her eyes at the Interpreter’s question, and she said:  ’Yes, Lord, there is here more than one.  Yea, and spiders whose venom is far more destructive than that which is in her.’  The Interpreter then looked pleasantly on her, and said:  ’Thou hast said the truth.’  This made Mercy blush, and the boys to cover their faces, for they all began now to understand the riddle.  ’This is to show you,’ said the Interpreter, ’that however full of the venom of sin you may be, yet you may, by the hand of faith, lay hold of, and dwell in the best room that belongs to the King’s House above.’  Then they all seemed to be glad, but the water stood in their eyes.  A wall also stood apart on the grounds of the house with an always dying fire on one side of it, while a man on the other side of the wall continually fed the fire through hidden openings in the wall.  A whole palace stood also on the grounds, the inspection of which so kindled our pilgrim’s heart, that he refused to stay here any longer, or to see any more sights—­so much had he already seen of the evil of sin and of the blessedness of salvation.  Not that he had seen as yet the half of what that house held for the instruction of pilgrims.  Only, time would fail us to visit the hen and her chickens; the butcher killing a sheep and pulling her skin over her ears, and she lying still under his hands and taking her death patiently; also the garden with the flowers all diverse in stature, and quality, and colour, and smell, and virtue, and some better than some, and all where the gardener had set them, there they stand, and quarrel not with one another.  The robin-red-breast also, so pretty of note and colour and carriage, but instead of bread and crumbs, and such like harmless matter, with a great spider in his mouth.  A tree also, whose inside was rotten, and yet it grew and had leaves.  So they went on their way and sang: 

   ’This place hath been our second stage,
   Here have we heard and seen
   Those good things that from age to age
   To others hid have been. 
   The butcher, garden, and the field,
   The robin and his bait,
   Also the rotten tree, doth yield
   Me argument of weight;
   To move me for to watch and pray,
   To strive to be sincere,
   To take my cross up day by day,
   And serve the Lord with few.’