A Little Pilgrim | Page 4

you sure, quite sure, it is so?" she said. "It would
be dreadful to find it only a dream, to go to sleep again, and wake
up--there--" This thought troubled her for a moment. The vision of 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