He thought for a moment. "Then I shall paint my picture for you," he said; "I shall think of you all the time I am doing it."
Once more they looked at the hills that seemed to rise up out of the deep shadows into the light, and then together they went home.
Soon afterwards a great sorrow came to the boy. While the little sister slept, she wandered into another world, and journeyed on so far that she lost the clue to earth, and came back no more. The boy painted many pictures before he saw the field again, but in the long hours, as he sat and worked, there came to him a strange power that answered more and more truly to the longing in his heart—the longing to put into the world something of which he was not ashamed, something which should make it, if only in the person of its meanest, humblest citizen, a little happier or better.
At last, when he knew that his eye was true and his touch sure, he took up the picture he had promised to paint for the dear sister, and worked at it until he was finished.
"This is better than all he has done before," the beholders said. "It is surely beautiful, for it makes one happy to look at it."
"And yet my heart ached as I did it," the boy said, as he went back to the field. "I thought of her all the time I worked,—it was sorrow that gave me power." It seemed as if a soft voice, that spoke only to his heart, answered back—
"Not sorrow but love, and perfect love has all things in its gift, and of it are all things born save happiness, and though that may be born too——"
"How does one find happiness?" interrupted the boy.
"It is a strange chase," the answer seemed to be; "to find it for one's own self, one must seek it for others. We all throw the ball for each other."
"But it is so difficult to seize."