A Little Pilgrim | Page 4

the bedchamber came back, but this time she felt it was only a vision. "Were you afraid too?" she said, in a low voice.
"I never thought of it at all," the beautiful stranger said. "I did not think it would come to me; but I was very sorry for the others to whom it came, and grudged that they should lose the beautiful earth and life, and all that was so sweet."
"My dear!" cried the Pilgrim, as if she had never died, "oh, but this is far sweeter! and the heart is so light, and it is happiness only to breathe. Is it heaven here? It must be heaven."
"I do not know if it is heaven. We have so many things to learn. They cannot tell you everything at once," said the beautiful lady. "I have seen some of the people I was sorry for, and when I told them, we laughed--as you and I laughed just now--for pleasure."
"That makes me think," said the little Pilgrim. "If I have died as you say--which is so strange and me so living--if I have died, they will have found it out. The house will be all dark, and they will be breaking their hearts. Oh, how could I forget them in my selfishness, and be happy! I so lighthearted while they--"
She sat down hastily and covered her face with her hands and wept. The other looked at her for a moment, then kissed her for comfort and cried too. The two happy creatures sat there weeping together, thinking of those they had left behind, with an exquisite grief which was not unhappiness, which was sweet with love and pity. "And oh," said the little Pilgrim, "what can we do to tell them not to grieve? Cannot you send, cannot you speak--cannot one go to tell them?"
The heavenly stranger shook her head.
"It is not well, they all say. Sometimes one has been permitted; but they do not know you," she said, with a pitiful look in her sweet eyes. "My mother told me that her heart was so sick for me, she was allowed to go; and she went and stood by me, and spoke to me, and I did not know her. She came back so sad and sorry that they took her at once to our Father, and there, you know, she found that it was all well. All is well when you are there."
"Ah," said the little Pilgrim, "I have been thinking of other things--of how happy I was, and of _them_, but never of the Father--just as if I had not died."
The other smiled upon her with a wonderful smile.
"Do you think He will be offended--our Father? as if He were one of us?" she said.
And then the little Pilgrim, in her sudden grief to have forgotten Him, became conscious of a new rapture unexplainable in words. She felt His understanding to envelop her little spirit with a soft and clear penetration, and that nothing she did or said could ever be misconceived more. "Will you take me to Him?" she said, trembling yet glad, clasping her hands. And once again the other shook her head.
"They will take us both when it is time," she said. "We do not go at our own will. But I have seen our Brother--"
"Oh, take me to Him!" the little Pilgrim cried. "Let me see His face! I have so many things to say to Him. I want to ask him--Oh, take me to where I can see His face!"
And then once again the heavenly lady smiled.
"I have seen Him," she said. "He is always about--now here, now there. He will come and see you perhaps when you are not thinking--but when He pleases. We do not think here of what we will--"
The little Pilgrim sat very still, wondering at all this. She had thought when a soul left the earth that it went at once to God, and thought of nothing more except worship and singing of praises. But this was different from her thoughts. She sat and pondered and wondered. She was baffled at many points. She was not changed as she expected, but so much like herself still--still perplexed, and feeling herself foolish, not understanding, toiling after a something which she could not grasp. The only difference was that it was no trouble to her now. She smiled at herself, and at her dulness, feeling sure that by and by she would understand.
"And don't you wonder too?" she said to her companion, which was a speech such as she used to make upon the earth where people thought her little remarks disjointed, and did not always see the connection of them. But her friend of heaven knew what she meant.
"I do nothing but wonder," she said, "for it is all