"It is our Father who takes care of them, and our Lord who is our Brother. I do His errands when I am able. Sometimes He will let me go, sometimes another, according as it is best. Who am I that I should take care of them? I serve them when I may."
"But you do not forget them?" the Pilgrim said, with wistful eyes.
"We love them always," said Margaret. She was more still than the lady who had first spoken with the Pilgrim. Her countenance was full of a heavenly calm. It had never known passion nor anguish. Sometimes there was in it a far-seeing look of vision, sometimes the simplicity of a child. "But what are we in comparison? For He loves them more than we do. When He keeps us from them it is for love. We must each live our own life."
"But it is hard for them sometimes," said the little Pilgrim, who could not withdraw her thoughts from those she had left.
"They are never forsaken," said the angel-maiden.
"But oh! there are worse things than sorrow," the little Pilgrim said; "there is wrong, there is evil, Margaret. Will not He send you to step in before them, to save them from wrong?"
"It is not for us to judge," said the young Margaret, with eyes full of heavenly wisdom. "Our Brother has it all in His hand. We do not read their hearts like Him. Sometimes you are permitted to see the battle."
The little Pilgrim covered her eyes with her hands. "I could not—I could not! unless I knew they were to win the day."
"They will win the day in the end. But sometimes, when it was being lost, I have seen in His face a something—I cannot tell—more love than before. Something that seemed to say, 'My child, my child, would that I could do it for thee, my child!'"
"Oh! that is what I have always felt," cried the Pilgrim, clasping her hands; her eyes were dim, her heart for a moment almost forgot its blessedness. "But He could—Oh, little Margaret! He could! You have forgotten—Lord, if Thou wilt Thou canst—"