by this time thus far on her journey also. She was a woman of a quick
apprehension, and the water stood in her eyes at the Interpreter's
question, and she said: 'Yes, Lord, there is here more than one. Yea,
and spiders whose venom is far more destructive than that which is in
her.' The Interpreter then looked pleasantly on her, and said: 'Thou
hast said the truth.' This made Mercy blush, and the boys to cover their
faces, for they all began now to understand the riddle. 'This is to show
you,' said the Interpreter, 'that however full of the venom of sin you
may be, yet you may, by the hand of faith, lay hold of, and dwell in the
best room that belongs to the King's House above.' Then they all seemed
to be glad, but the water stood in their eyes. A wall also stood apart
on the grounds of the house with an always dying fire on one side of it,
while a man on the other side of the wall continually fed the fire
through hidden openings in the wall. A whole palace stood also on the
grounds, the inspection of which so kindled our pilgrim's heart, that he
refused to stay here any longer, or to see any more sights--so much had
he already seen of the evil of sin and of the blessedness of salvation.
Not that he had seen as yet the half of what that house held for the
instruction of pilgrims. Only, time would fail us to visit the hen and
her chickens; the butcher killing a sheep and pulling her skin over her
ears, and she lying still under his hands and taking her death patiently;
also the garden with the flowers all diverse in stature, and quality, and
colour, and smell, and virtue, and some better than some, and all where
the gardener had set them, there they stand, and quarrel not with one
another. The robin-red-breast also, so pretty of note and colour and
carriage, but instead of bread and crumbs, and such like harmless matter,
with a great spider in his mouth. A tree also, whose inside was rotten,
and yet it grew and had leaves. So they went on their way and sang:

'This place hath been our second stage,