Chapter 4

No sooner had she spoken than she felt herself raised from her place and borne away out of the crowded room in which she was,--out, out into the world, as free as the air itself, and being carried along as though she were a piece of light thistle-down on the back of a summer breeze.

That she was travelling very fast, she could see by the way in which she out-stripped the clouds hurrying noiselessly across the sky. One thing she knew,--whatever progress she was making was due, not to herself (for she was making absolutely no effort at all, seeming to be merely reclining at ease), but was the result of some other exertion than her own. She was not frightened in the least, but, as she grew accustomed to the peculiar mode of locomotion, became more and more curious to discover the source of it.

She looked about her, but nothing was visible save the azure sky above her and the green earth beneath. She seemed to be quite alone. The sense of her solitude began to fill her with a deep awe, and she grew strangely uneasy: as she thought of herself, a frail little girl, amid the vastness of the big world.

How weak and helpless she was,--scarcely more important than one of the wild-flowers she had used to tread on when she was n't being hurried through space by the means of--she knew not what. To be sure, she was pretty; but then they had been pretty too, and she had stepped on them, and they had died, and she had gone away and no one had ever known.

"Oh, dear!" she thought, "it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to be killed (even if I _am_ pretty), and no one would know it at all. I wonder what is going to happen? I wish I had n't come."

"Don't be afraid!" said the familiar voice, suddenly. "We promised to take care of you. We are truth itself. Don't be afraid!"

"But I _am_ afraid," insisted Marjorie, in a petulant way, "and I 'm getting afraider every minute. I don't know where I 'm going, nor how I 'm being taken there, and I don't like it one bit. Who are you, anyway?"

For a moment she received no reply; but then the voice said: "Hush! don't speak so irreverently. You are talking to the emissaries of a great sovereign,--his Majesty the Sun."

"Is _he_ carrying me along?" inquired Marjorie presently, with deep respect.

"Oh, dear, no," responded the voice; "we are doing that. We are his vassals,--you call us beams. He never condescends to leave his place,--he could not; if he were to desert his throne for the smallest fraction of a second, one could not imagine the amount of disaster that would ensue. But we do his bidding, and hasten north and south and east and west, just as he commands. It is a very magnificent thing to be a king--"

"Of course," interrupted Marjorie; "one can wear such elegant clothes, that shine and sparkle like everything with gold and jewels, and have lots of servants and--"

"No, no," corrected the beam, warmly. "Where did you get such a wrong idea of things? That is not at all where the splendor of being a king exists. It does not lie in the mere fact of one 's being born to a title and able to command. That would be very little if that were all. It is not in the gold and jewels and precious stuffs that go to adorn a king that his grandeur lies, but in the things which these things represent. We give a king the rarest and the most costly, because it is fitting that the king should have the best,--that he is worthy of the best; that only the best will serve one who is so great and glorious. They mean nothing in themselves; they only describe his greatness. The things that one sees are not of importance; it is the things that they are put there to represent. Do you understand? I don't believe you do. I 'll try to make it more clear to you, like a true sunbeam. Look at one of your earth-kings, for instance. He is nothing but a man just like the rest of you; but what makes him great is that he is supposed to have more truth, more wisdom, more justice and power. If he has not these things, then he would better never have been a king; for that only places him where every one can see how unworthy he is,--makes his lacks only more conspicuous. Your word _king_ comes from another word, _könning_; which comes from still another word, _canning_, that means _ableman_. If he is not really an ableman, it were better he had never worn ermine. And there, too; ermine is only a fur, you know. It is nothing in itself but fur; but you have come to think of it as an emblem of royalty because kings use it. So you see, Marjorie, a thing is not of any worth really except as it represents something that is great and noble, something _true_."

Marjorie was very silent for a little; she was trying to understand what the sunbeam meant, and found it rather difficult. After a while she gave it up and said,--

"Will you tell me how you are carrying me, and where we are going, and all about it?"

"Certainly," replied the beam, brightly. "You are in a sort of hammock made out of threads of sunshine. We sunbeams can weave one in less than no time, and it is no trouble at all to swing a little mortal like you way out into the clearness and the light, so that a bit of it can make its way into your dark little soul, and make you not quite so blind as you were."

"Why, I 'm not blind at all," said Marjorie, with a surprised pout. "I can see as well as anything. Did you think I couldn't?"

"I _know_ you can't," replied the beam, calmly. "That is, you can't see any farther than the outside part of things, and that is almost worse than seeing none of them at all. But here we are nearing the court of the king. Now don't expect to see _him_, for that is impossible. He is altogether too radiant for you; your eyes could not bear so much glory. It would be just as if you took one of your own little moles or bats (creatures that are used to the dark) and put them in the full glare of a noonday sun. The sun would be there, but they could not see it, because their eyes would be too weak and dim. Even yourself,--have n't you often tried to look the sun full in the face? Yes; and you have had to give it up and turn your face away because it hurt your eyes. Well, his Majesty only lets the world have a glimpse of his glory. But here we are at our journey's end."

With these words Marjorie felt herself brought to a gentle halt, and found herself in a place most wondrously clear and light and high, from which she could look off,--far, far across and over and down to where something that looked like a dim ball was whirling rapidly.

"That is your earth," whispered the sunbeam in her ear,--"the earth that you have just left."

Marjorie was so astounded that for a time she was unable to say a word. Then she managed to falter out: "But it always looked so big and bright, and now it is nothing but a horrid dark speck--"

"That is just it, Marjorie,--just what I said. When you look at the world simply as a planet, it is small and dark enough, not nearly so large as some of the others you see about you; but when you look at it as a place on which God has put his people to be good and noble, to work out a beautiful purpose, then-- But wait a moment."

Marjorie felt a strange thrill pass through her; across her eyes swept something that felt like a caressing hand, and when she looked again everything was changed, and she seemed gazing at a wonderful sort of panorama that shifted and changed every moment, showing more lovely impressions each instant.

"What is it?" she gasped, scarcely able to speak for delight and breathless with amazement.

"Only pictures of your world as it really is. Pictures taken by his Highness the Sun, who does not stop at the mere outer form of things, but reveals the true inwardness of them,--what they are actually. He does not stop with the likeness of the surface of things; he makes portraits of their hearts as well, and he always gets exact likenesses,--he never fails."

Marjorie felt a sudden fear steal over her at these words; she did not precisely know why, but she had a dim sort of feeling that if the sun took photographs of more than the outside of things (of the hearts as well), some of the pictures he got might not be so pretty, perhaps. But she said nothing, and watched the scroll as it unrolled before her with a great thrill of wonderment.

With her new vision the world was more beautiful than anything she had ever imagined. She could see everything upon its surface, even to the tiniest flower; but nothing was as it had seemed to her when she had been one of its inhabitants herself. Each blade of grass, each tree and rock and brook, was something more than a mere blade or tree or rock or brook,--something so much more strange and beautiful that it almost made her tremble with ecstasy to see.

"Now you can see," said the voice; "before you were blind. Now you understand what I meant when I said the objects one sees are of themselves nothing; it is what they represent that is grand and glorious and beautiful. A flower is lovely, but it is not half so lovely as the thing it suggests--but I can't expect you to understand _that_. Even when you were blind you used to love the ocean. Now that you can see, do you know why? It is because it is an emblem of God's love, deep and mighty and strong and beautiful beyond words. And so with the mountains, and so with the smallest weed that grows. But we must look at other things before you go back--"

"Oh, dear!" faltered Marjorie, "when I go back shall I be blind again? How does one see clear when one goes back?"

"Through truth," answered the beam, briefly.

But just then Marjorie found herself looking at some new sights. "What are these?" she whispered tremblingly.

"The _proofs_ of some pictures you will remember to have half seen," replied the beam.

And sure enough! with a start of amaze and wonder she saw before her eyes the people who had sat in the crowded gallery with her before she had left it to journey here with her sunbeam guide; but, oh! with such a difference.

The baby she had thought so ugly was in reality a white-winged angel, mild-eyed and pitying; while the hump-backed boy represented a patience so tender that it beautified everything upon which it shone. She thought she recognized in one of the pictures a frock of filmy lace that she remembered to have seen before; but the form it encased was strange to her, so ill-shapen and unlovely it looked; while the face was so repulsive that she shrank from it with horror.

"Is that what I thought was the pretty girl?" she murmured tremulously.

"Yes," replied the beam, simply.

The next portrait was that of the silver-haired old lady whom Marjorie had thought so crooked and bowed. She saw now why her shoulders were bent. It was because of the mass of memories she carried,--memories gathered through a long and useful life. Her silver hair made a halo about her head.

"The next is yours," breathed the voice at her side, softly. "Will you look?"

Marjorie gave a quick start, and her voice quivered sadly as she cried,--

"Oh, blessed sunbeam, don't force me to see it! Let me go back and try to be better before I see my likeness. I am afraid now. The outside prettiness is n't anything, unless one's spirit is lovely too; and I--I could not look, for I know--I know how hateful mine would be. I have learned about it now, and it's like a book; if the story the book tells is not beautiful, the pictures won't be good to see. I have learned about it now, and I know better than I did. May I--oh, may I try again?"

She waited in an agony of suspense for the answer; and when it came, and the voice said gently, "It is your turn next," she cried aloud,--

"Not yet, oh, not yet! Let me wait. Let me try again."

And there she was, with her cheeks all flushed and tear-stained, her hair in loose, damp curls about her temples, and her frock all rumpled and crushed in her mother's arms; and her mother was saying,--

"Bad dreams, sweetheart? You have had a fine, long nap; but it is your turn next, and I have had to wake you. Come, dear! Now we must see if we cannot get a good likeness of you,--just as you really are."

WHAT HAPPENED TO LIONEL.

It is not to be supposed that such things happen every day. If they were to happen every day, one would get so familiar with them that they would not seem at all extraordinary; and if there were no extraordinary things in the world, how very dull one would be, to be sure! As it is-- But to go back.

The beggar had stood before the area-gate for a long time, and no one had paid the slightest attention to him. He was an old man with long gray hair, and a faded, ragged coat, whose tatters fluttered madly to and fro every time the wind blew. He was very tall and gaunt, and his back was bent. On his head was a big slouched hat, whose brim fell forward over his eyes and almost hid them entirely in its shadow. He carried a basket upon one arm, and a cane with a crook for a handle hung upon the other. He seemed very patient, for he was waiting, unmurmuringly, for some one to come in answer to the ring he had given the area-bell some fifteen minutes before. No one came, and he appeared to be considering whether to ring again or go away, when Lionel skipped nimbly from his chair by the drawing-room window, slipped noiselessly down the basement stairs, and opened the area-door just in time to prevent the beggar from taking his departure.

"What do you want, sir?" inquired Lionel, politely, through the tall iron gate.

The beggar turned around at the sound of the child's voice, and replied:

"I have come to beg--"

"Oh, yes, I know," cried Lionel, hurriedly (he was afraid some one might come, and then he would be snatched unceremoniously away from the open door, and the beggar sent smartly about his business by one of the pert-tongued maids); "but is it for cold victuals or money?"

The beggar looked down at the little lad, and a smile, half of pity, half of amusement, lit up his grave features for a moment. "I have come to beg," he said slowly, "that you will receive from me, not that you will give to me."

Lionel's eyes widened with amazement. "That I will receive from you?" he repeated slowly. "Then you are n't a beggar at all?"

"Most assuredly I am," responded the old man, promptly. "Do I not beg of you? What is a beggar? 'One who begs or entreats earnestly or with humility; a petitioner.' That is how your dictionary has it. It does n't say for what he begs or entreats. Where I come from things are so different,--there it is a mark of distinction, I can assure you, to be a beggar. One must have lived such a long life of poverty and self-sacrifice before one is permitted to beg--to beg others to receive one's benefits. Ah, yes, there it is so different!"

"Yes, it must be," assented Lionel. "Here beggars are just persons who go about and ask for cold bits or pennies; and we don't think much of them at all."

"That is because they are not the right kind of almsfolk, nor you the right kind of almoners," responded the beggar; and then he repeated: "Ah, yes, there it is so different!"

"Where?" inquired Lionel. "Won't you tell me about it?"

"Dear child," replied the beggar, gently, "it can't be described. It must be seen to be appreciated. If you once entered into that estate, you would never wish to return to this."

"Is it as nice as all that?" questioned Lionel, eagerly. "Guess I 'll go, then. Will you take me ?" he asked.

The beggar smiled down at him kindly. "I can't take you, dear boy," he said. "I have to travel on. But I can set you on the road, and you will reach there in safety if you follow my directions."

Lionel waited breathlessly for the beggar to continue; but the man almost seemed to have forgotten his existence, for he was gazing dreamily over his head into the darkness of the hallway, apparently seeing nothing but what was in his own mind's eye.

"Well?" asked Lionel, a little impatiently. "You were going to give me the directions, you know."

"Oh, yes!" returned the beggar, with a slight start. "Well, the directions are: _Always turn to the right_!"

Lionel considered a moment, and then he said: "But if I always turn to the right I should n't get anywhere at all. I 'd be only going round and round."

"No, no!" replied the beggar, hastily; "you must always go _square_, you know. And you 'll find you 'll get along beautifully if you always keep to the right."

"But s'pose," suggested Lionel, "I come to a place where the road is to the left,--some of the roads might be not to the right,--some might go quite the other way."

"Yes," assented the beggar, wistfully. "They _all_ go the other way,--that is, they _seem_ to go the other way. But when they seem to go to the wrong and you don't see any that go to the right, just keep as near to the right as you can, and by and by you 'll see one and it will be lovely. But if you turn down to the wrong, you run a chance of losing your way entirely. It is always so much harder to go back."

"But are those all the directions you are going to give me?" inquired Lionel, with a doubtful glance.

"They are sufficient," replied the beggar. "You 'll find them sufficient;" and before Lionel could say another word the beggar had vanished from before his very eyes. He had not slipped away, nor slunk away, nor walked away, nor sped away,--he had simply vanished; and Lionel was left alone behind the grated door of the area-way gazing out upon a vacant space of pavement where, an instant before, the beggar had stood. The little boy rubbed his eyes and looked again. No, the beggar was gone, in very truth, and had left not so much as a rag behind him. But, look! what was that? Something lay upon the stone step just outside the gate, and it gleamed brightly from out its dusky corner. Lionel reached up and unlatched the heavy fastening. The great gate swung slowly in, and Lionel stepped briskly out. He bent down and grasped the shining object; it proved to be a little rule, and it was made of solid gold. He clasped it to his bosom.

"How beautiful!" he murmured. "Now I can measure things and carve them with my jack-knife, and they 'll be just exactly right. Before they have n't been quite straight, and when I 'd try to put the parts together they wouldn't fit; but now--"

And then suddenly the thought flashed across his mind: "Perhaps it belongs to the beggar and he might want it;" and without a moment's thought to his bare head, he passed quickly through the gateway and out into the street.

"It's such a beautiful rule," he thought, as he flew along. "I never saw such a darling. If it were mine, how I should hate to lose it! I must certainly find him and give it back to him; for I know he must feel just as I should if it were mine."

It never entered into his head to keep the thing; his one idea seemed to be to find the beggar and return to him his property. But before very long his breath began to come in gasps, and he found himself panting painfully and unable to run any farther. He paused and leaned against the huge newel-post at the foot of some one's outer steps. His cheeks were aglow, his eyes flashing, his thick curls rough and tumbled, and his bang in fine disorder. The deep embroidered cuffs and collar upon his blouse were crushed and rumpled; his little Zouave jacket was wind-blown and dusty, and his pumps splashed with mud from the gutter-puddles through which he had run. At home they would have said he "looked like distress;" but here, leaning wearily against the post, he was a most picturesque little figure.

Suddenly he felt a light touch upon his head, and then his bang was brushed back from his temples as though by the stroke of some kindly hand. He looked up, and there beside him stood the oddest-looking figure he had ever seen.

The stranger was clad from head to foot in a suit of silver gray. Upon his head he wore a peaked cap, upon his feet were the longest and most pointed of buskins; his doublet and hose were silver gray, and over his shoulders hung a mantle about which was a jagged border made after the most fantastic design, which shone and glittered like ice in sunlight. About his hips was a narrow girdle from which hung a sheathed dagger whose hilt was richly studded with clear, white crystals that looked to Lionel like the purest of diamonds.

Lionel felt that when he spoke it would probably be after some old-century fashion which he could scarcely understand; but there he was mistaken, for when the stranger addressed him, it was in the most modern manner and with great kindliness.

"Well, my son," he said cheerily, "tired out? I saw you run. You have a fine pair of heels. They have good speed in them."

"I wanted to catch up with someone,--an old beggar-man who lost something in our area-way. I wanted to return it to him," explained Lionel, breathlessly.

The stranger gazed down at him more kindly than ever. "So? But one can't expect to catch up with folks when one gets _winded_ and has to stop every now and then for breath. Better try my mode."

"Please, sir, what is your mode?" inquired Lionel, with his politest manner.

"To begin with," explained his companion, "I have to accomplish the most astonishing feats in the manner of speed. Literally I have to travel so fast that I am in two places at once. You will the better believe me when I tell you who I am,--Jack Frost, at your service, sir. Now, by what means do you think I manage it ?"

"I 'm sure I don't know. I should like immensely to find out," Lionel returned.

"How do you get to places yourself?" inquired Jack Frost. "Do you always run?"

"Oh, no, indeed. I almost always ride on my bicycle. Then I can _go_ like anything, 'specially down _coasts_. Upgrades are kind of hard sometimes, but not so very. Oh, I can go quick enough when I have my bicycle."

"Now then," broke in Jack Frost, "you use a bicycle,--that is, a machine having two wheels. Now _I_ use a something having but one wheel; consequently it goes twice as fast,--oh! much more than twice as fast."

"One wheel?" repeated Lionel, thoughtfully; "seems to me I never heard of that kind of an one."

"Suppose you guess," proposed Jack Frost. "I 'll put it in the form of a conundrum: If a thing having two wheels is called a _bi_cycle, what would a thing having but one be called?"

"Oh, that's an old one. I 've heard that before, and the answer is, a wheelbarrow, you know."

Jack Frost shook his head, "I see I shall have to tell you," he said. "If a thing having two wheels is called a _bi_cycle, a thing having but one would naturally be an _i_cicle. Of course you might have known I should use an icicle."

"But oh, Mr. Frost," objected Lionel, "I never saw an icicle with a wheel in my life, and I never saw one go either."

"That's because you have n't seen me on one; and even if you had seen me on one, you wouldn't have known it,--we travel so fast. Did you ever notice that when things are going at the very rapidest rate possible, they seem to be standing perfectly still? That's the way with icicles. They have tremendous speed in them. They go so fast you can't realize it, and then when they are slowing up they don't do it with a clumsy jerk as bicycles do; they just gradually melt out of sight."

"Yes, I 've seen them do that. I 've seen them go that way," admitted Lionel. "But will you take me to the beggar? I'm 'fraid I sha'n't be able to give him his rule if I don't hurry up."

"But do you know in what direction he went?" asked Jack Frost. "If one wants to catch up with any one, one needs to have _some_ idea of the direction he took. It's quite a _desideratum_,--when you get home, look that up."