"Do you mean—where we have come from?" said the little Pilgrim.
"Not always there. We in this city have been long separated from that country, for all that we love are out of it."
"But not here?" the little Pilgrim cried again with a little sorrow—a pang that she had thought could never touch her again—in her heart.
"But coming! coming!" said the painter, cheerfully; "and some were here before us, and some have arrived since. They are everywhere."
"But some in trouble—some in trouble!" she cried, with the tears in her eyes.
"We suppose so," he said gravely; "for some are in that place which once was called among us the place of despair."
"You mean—" and though the little Pilgrim had been made free of fear, at that word which she would not speak, she trembled, and the light grew dim in her eyes.
"Well!" said her new friend, "and what then? The Father sees through and through it as He does here: they cannot escape Him: so that there is Love near them always. I have a son," he said, then sighed a little, but smiled again, "who is there."
The little Pilgrim at this clasped her hands with a piteous cry.
"Nay, nay," he said, "little sister; my friend I was telling you of, the angel, brought me news of him just now. Indeed there was news of him through all the city. Did you not hear all the bells ringing? But perhaps that was before you came. The angels who know me best came one after another to tell me, and our Lord himself came to wish me joy. My son had found the way."