This was at a time when Sarah gathering Maud and Albert Eddie and Emmy Lou around her in the sitting-room above the grocery, about the hob, which is to say the grate, sang them hymns. It was from one of these hymns that Emmy Lou had pictured the way.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How fair the lily grows,
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
Of Sharon's dewy rose.
According to Sarah's hymns there were two classes of travelers on this sweet and goodly way.
Children of the Heavenly King,
As ye journey sweetly sing!
These Emmy Lou conceived of first. Later she saw others of whom Sarah sang, less buoyant, less tripping, but with upturned faces no less expectant.
And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing
Kind Shepherd turn their weary steps to Thee.
Emmy Lou listening to Sarah's hymns even saw these welcomed.
Angels of Jesus,
Angels of light,
Singing to welcome
The pilgrims of the night.
But that was time ago. There is no one and common road whose dust as it nears Heaven is gold and its pavement stars. Each knocks at the portal of his own persuasion and says, "I am informed that by this gate is the way thither."
But Albert Eddie, having entered his portal, was in doubt. "What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" he said to Emmy Lou, by "she" meaning Sarah, and by "in," the church of his adoption. His question began in a husky mutter of desperation and ended in a high treble of exasperation. Or was it merely that his voice was uncertain?