h weak folk as we are hold out in a path fraught with
toils and snares, if we have no friends to take us?

James:--Pray, Sir, keep with us and help us, when the way we go is so
hard to find.

Great-heart:--As my Lord wills, so must I do; if He send me to join you
once more, I shall be glad to wait on you. But it was here that you were
in fault at first, for when He bade me come thus far with you, if you
had said, We beg of you to let him go quite through with us, He would
have let me do so. But now I must go back; and so good Christiana, Mercy
and my dear boys, fare ye all well.

Then did Watchful, who kept the lodge, ask Christiana whence she had
come and who her friends were.

Christiana:--I come from The City of Destruction, and I was the wife of
one Christian, who is dead.

Then Watchful rang the hell, as at such times he is wont, and there came
to the door a maid, to whom he said: Go, make it known that Christiana,
the wife of Christian, and her four boys are come on their way to The
Celestial City..

So she went in and told all this. And, oh, what shouts of joy were sent
forth when those words fell from her mouth! So all came with haste to
Watchful; for Christiana still stood at the door.

Some of the most grave said to her, Christiana, come in, thou wife of
that good man, come in, thou blest one, come in, with all that are with
thee.

So she went in, and the rest with her. They then bade them sit down in
a large room, where the chief of the house came to see them and to cheer
his guests. Then he gave each of them a kiss. But as it was late, and
Christiana and the rest were faint with the great fright they had had,
they would fain have gone to rest.

Nay, said those of the house, take first some meat; for as Watchful had
heard that they were on their way, a lamb had been slain for them When
the meal had come to an end, and they had sung a psalm, Christiana said,
If we may be so bold as to choose, let us be in that room which was
Christian's when he was here.

So they took them there, but ere she went to sleep, Christiana said, I
did not think when my poor Christian set off with his load on his back
that I should do the same thing.

Mercy:--No, nor did you think then that you should rest in the same room
as he had done.

Christiana:--And less still to see his dear face once more who was dead
and gone, and to praise the Lord the King with him; and yet now I think
I shall.

Mercy:--Do you not hear a