King,' her voice hushed itself
into a reverent whisper.

'And how about the pain, my lady?' asked Belle. Pauline's eyes were full
of tears.

'Just right,' she answered brightly. 'Some days are set in minor key,
and the Lord calls me where the waves run high; but so long as I am sure
it is the Lord, what does it matter? Not one good thing has failed of
all that He has promised, and soldiers do not mind a few sword thrusts
when they are marching to victory. "This day the noise of battle, the
next the victor's song." She closed her eyes and a triumphant smile
played about her mouth.

'You seem so certain, my lady,' said Belle wistfully.

'Surely! "For we know that He hath prepared for us a city."'

'Now you mean heaven,' said Pauline impetuously. 'To me heaven is
enveloped in fog.'

'It will not be, dear child, when the mists have rolled away, and in the
clear light of the Sun of Righteousness you look across to the other
shore.'

'Couldn't you tell me what it is like, my lady? You seem to know. I
can't fathom it, and everything looks so dark.'

Tryphosa lifted a plain little book from a revolving bookcase of
morocco-bound treasures, which stood within easy reach.

'I believe I will let Miss Warner answer you. "Would you like a heaven
so small, so human, that mortal words could line it out, and mortal
wishes be its boundary? The things we look for are prepared by One whose
thoughts are as far above our thoughts as the broad starlit heaven is
above this little gaslit earth. And do you think that people are to be
all massed in heaven, losing their various identities, their differing
tastes, their separate natures? Going from this lower world so full of
its adaptations, where colour and form take on a thousand changes, and
life and pursuit can be varied almost at will, to a mere dead level of
perfect felicity? To leave earth where no two things are alike, and go
to heaven to find no two different! The Lord's preparations mean more
than that. We should learn better from this lower world. No one pair of
black eyes is just like another, no two leaves upon the same tree. And
not a yellow blossom can spring up by the wayside, without a red or a
white one at hand for contrast. Are the clouds copies of each other? Are
the shadows on the hills ever twice the same? Take for your comfort the
full assurance that the very Tree of Life--which in Eden seems to have
borne but one manner of fruit--in heaven shall bear twelve. But