said the little Pilgrim, with joy, 'it is for myself, myself alone! As if
I were a great angel, as if I were a saint. It drops into my heart like
the dew. It is what I need, not for you, though I love you, but for me
only. It is my secret between me and Him.'

Her companion bowed his head. 'It is so. And thus has He spoken to the
little child. But what He said or why He said it, is not for you or me to
know. It is His secret; it is between the little one and his Father. Who
can interfere between these two? Many and many are there born on earth
whose work and whose life are ordained elsewhere,--for there is no way of
entrance into the race of man which is the nature of the Lord, but by the
gates of birth; and the work which the Father has to do is so great and
manifold that there are multitudes who do but pass through those gates to
ascend to their work elsewhere. But the Father alone knows whom he has
chosen. It is between the child and Him. It is their secret; it is as you
have said.'

The little Pilgrim was silent for a moment, but then turned her head from
the bright shining of the skies and the voices of the children which
floated farther and farther off, and looked at the house in which there
was sorrow and despair. She pointed towards it, and looked at him who was
her instructor, and had come to show her how these things were.

'They are to blame,' he said; 'but none will blame them. The little life
is hard. The Father, though He is very near, seems far off; and sometimes
even His word is as a dream. It is to them as if they had lost their
child. Can you not remember?--that was what we said. We have lost--'

Then the little Pilgrim, musing, began to smile, but wept again as she
thought of the father and the mother. 'If we were to go,' she said, 'hand