‘Listen!’ said the Sage; and when she listened she heard the sound of the children going back with a great murmur and ringing of pleasant voices like silver bells in the air, and among them the voice of the child asking a thousand questions, calling them by their names. The two pilgrims listened and laughed to each other for love at the sound of the children. ‘Is it for the little brother that you are troubled?’ the Sage said in her ear. Then she was ashamed, and turned from the joyful sounds that were ascending ever higher and higher, to the little house that stood below with all its windows closed upon the light. It was wrapped in darkness though the sun was shining, the windows closed as if they never would open more, and the people within turning their faces to the wall, covering their eyes that they might not see the light of day. ‘O miserable day!’ they were saying, ‘O dark hour!--O life that will never smile again!’ She sat between earth and heaven, her eyes smiling, but her mouth beginning to quiver once more. ‘Is it to raise their thoughts and their hearts?’ she said. ‘Little sister,’ said he, ‘when the Father speaks to you, it is not for me nor for another that He speaks. And what He says to you is----’ ‘Ah,’ 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----’