re us, and some have arrived since. They are everywhere."

"But some in trouble--some in trouble!" she cried, with the tears in her
eyes.

"We suppose so," he said, gravely; "for some are in that place which once
was called among us the place of despair."

"You mean--" and though the little Pilgrim had been made free of fear, at
that word which she would not speak, she trembled, and the light grew dim
in her eyes.

"Well!" said her new friend, "and what then? The Father sees through and
through it as he does here; they cannot escape him: so that there is Love
near them always. I have a son," he said, then sighed a little, but
smiled again, "who is there."

The little Pilgrim at this clasped her hands with a piteous cry.

"Nay, nay," he said, "little sister; my friend I was telling you of, the
angel, brought me news of him just now. Indeed there was news of him
through all the city. Did you not hear all the bells ringing? But perhaps
that was before you came. The angels who know me best came one
after another to tell me, and our Lord himself came to wish me joy. My
son had found the way."

The little Pilgrim did not understand this, and almost thought that the
painter must be mistaken or dreaming. She looked at him very anxiously
and said,--

"I thought that those unhappy--never came out any more."

The painter smiled at her in return, and said,--

"Had you children in the old time?"

She paused a little before she replied.

"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