worthy.

I set forth alone. The child was left behind me with a neighbour, for
so I thought the way of wisdom in this matter. Following only the
general directions which I had received, I found myself soon within the
open country toward the region of the hills. As I advanced, the
scenery became familiar to me, and I was not slow to recognize the path
as the one which I myself had trodden on my first entrance to the city
wherein of recent days I had found my home. I stopped to consider this
fact, and to gather landmarks, gazing about me diligently and musing on
my unknown course; for the ways divided before me as foot-paths do in
fields, each looking like all and all like each. While I stood
uncertain, and sensitively anxious to make no mistake, I heard the hit!
hit! of light feet patting the grass behind me, and, turning, saw a
little fellow coming like the morning wind across the plain. His
bright hair blew straight before him, from his forehead. He ran
sturdily. How beautiful he was!

He did not call me nor show the slightest fear lest he should fail to
overtake me. Ha had already learned that love always overtakes the
beloved in that blessed land.

"You forgot your little boy," he said reproachfully, and put his hand
quietly within mine and walked on beside me, and forgot that he had
been forgotten immediately, and looked upward at me radiantly.

Remembering the command to await what should occur, and do as my heart
prompted, I accepted this accident as part of a purpose wiser than my
own, and kissed the little fellow, and we travelled on together.

As we came into the hill country, our way grow wilder and more
desolate. The last of the stray travellers whom we chanced to meet was
now well behind us. In the wide spaces we were quite alone. Behind
us, dim and distant, shimmering like an opal in a haze of fair
half-tints, the city shone. On either side of us, the forest trees
began to tread solemnly, like a vast procession which no man could
number, keeping step to some inaudible march. Before us, the great
crest of the mountains towered dark as death against the upper sky. As
we drew near, the loneliness of these hills was to me as something of
which I had never conceived before. Earth did not hold their likeness,
and my heart had never held their meaning. I could almost have dreaded
them, as we came nearer to them; but the deviation of the paths had
long since ceased. In the desolate country wh