60 BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.

“Yes, always. Did he not tell you his name is the Children’s
Guide? Is not his a happy life? You don’t know how he enjoys it.
He goes up to the gates of the country with all the children who
come through the black door. Sometimes he stays long enough at the
gates to see a child kiss its father and mother.”

“ But does he never come in?” asked Clover.

“Not yet,’ repled Pearl, in a wonderfully grave kind of voice.
“He has his work to do here. He won’t go in until his work
is done.”

“ And you always live in this castle?” said Cowslip. ‘‘ Don’t you
ever get tired of it?”

“ How can I? What life can be more beautiful? Of course some
day I and my father too will go inside the gates, but not until our
work is done. Sometimes, as a great treat, I can look through a
big glass, which we have at the top of the house, and see right inside
ine gates into the country. I cannot always see, but I can some-
times.”

“What do you see?” asked Cowslip.

‘Pearl looked at her out of her deep eyes. “I must not tell you,”
she said. And then she added with a little sigh, “And why should
I tell you what you will soon know all about? By this time to-morrow
you will know a great deal more about the beautiful country than any
words of mine can tell you.”

Pearl was a little girl not much older than Cowslip. She had a
wonderful eee ee way about her, and a look which seemed
to say—

“T have done with sorrow—TI never fret, I am never discontented.
No storms can visit me. I am very happy, and I wait contented here
in the white palace, until my work and my father’s is done.”

But gentle as Pearl’s face was, with its expression of perfect peace,
rt had not the look of strength which made the Children’s Guide
quite the most wonderful person that Clover and Cowslip had ever
seen.

xs oe us one thing, Pearl,” said Clover, as they parted for the
night: “when we got inside the black gates we were lifted in