The little Pilgrim did not understand this, and almost thought that the painter must be mistaken or dreaming. She looked at him very anxiously and said—
"I thought that those unhappy—never came out any more."
The painter smiled at her in return, and said—
"Had you children in the old time?"
She paused a little before she replied.
"I had children in love," she said, "but none that were born mine."
"It is the same," he said; "it is the same; and if one of them had sinned against you, injured you, done wrong in any way, would you have cast him off, or what would you have done?"
"Oh!" said the little Pilgrim again, with a vivid light of memory coming into her face, which showed she had no need to think of this as a thing that might have happened, but knew. "I brought him home. I nursed him well again. I prayed for him night and day. Did you say cast him off? when he had most need of me? then I never could have loved him," she cried.
The painter nodded his head, and his hand with the pencil in it, for he had turned from his picture to look at her.
"Then you think you love better than our Father?" he said: and turned to his work, and painted a new fold in the robe, which looked as if a soft air had suddenly blown into it, and not the touch of a skilful hand.