"You speak as kindly as would the daughter of a wang!" said Sky-High, with his beautiful bow of ceremony.
On Sunday the little Chinaman dressed his hair becomingly and put on black clothes, with white ruffles. He sat in the Van Buren pew, beside Charlie. He listened to the organ like one entranced. It was Easter Day, and the house was full of the odor of lilies. The text for the service was these words of Jesus: "If any man keep my sayings he shall never see death."
The "Joss preacher," as he called the minister, came and spoke to him, and invited him to go into the Sunday-school room.
In the evening he made Chinese tea, and served it in the library, and afterward sat with the family.
Suddenly he said, "Mistress, what were the 'sayings' of Jesus? Sky-High wishes to live on forever."
Mrs. Van Buren read the Beatitudes.
"And what is the heaven, mistress?"
"Sky-High," said Mrs. Van Buren, very earnestly, to her little servant, "I scarcely know how to tell you what heaven is, only that we surely have a part in its building here by our Loving and our Helping here. You know how dear it is to be with those you love, you know how pleasant it is to meet again those you have helped. That is the law of the soul. God loves and helps us, and will rejoice in having us abide with him, and that will make us happy; and all whom we have made better and happier here will help make our heaven for us. Heaven is the gladness of Loving and Helping as nearly as I know."
"That heaven—it is beautiful, mistress," said little Sky-High. In his own country, it had been pleasant music to hear the "prayer-wheels" go round in the temples, whirling the paper prayers fastened upon them, but the pleasure he felt at this moment was different.
"I will help many, mistress," he said. "Perhaps Sky-High will help the boys that pull his queue on the street when he goes errands to the stores. Sky-High will go with his mistress and her children other Sundays, if he may. Goodnight, mistress!"