"May I sit by you a little?" said the man. He sat down, drawing long
breaths, as though he had gone through great fatigue; and looked about
with wondering eyes. "You will wonder, but I do not know where I am," he
said. "I feel as if I must he dreaming. This is not where I expected to
come. I looked for something very different; do you think there can have
been any--mistake?"

"Oh, never that," she said; "there are no mistakes here."

Then he looked at her again, and said,--

"I perceive that you belong to this country, though you say you are a
pilgrim. I should be grateful if you would tell me. Does one live--here?
And is this all? Is there no--no--but I don't know what word to use. All
is so strange, different from what I expected."

"Do you know that you have died?"

"Yes--yes, I am quite acquainted with that," he said, hurriedly; as if it
had been an idea he disliked to dwell upon. "But then I expected--Is
there no one to tell you where to go, or what you are to be? or to take
any notice of you?"

The little Pilgrim was startled by this tone. She did not understand its
meaning, and she had not any word to say to him. She looked at him with
as much bewilderment as he had shown when he approached her, and replied,
faltering,--

"There are a great many people here; but I have never heard if there is
any one to tell you--"