Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/89

 I was considering what I should say, when he saved me the trouble, and exclaimed, not without a look of surprise, 'Where is your nurse, little girl?'

'Nurse is at home with mamma,' I replied.

'And what are you doing here all by yourself?' he asked.

I replied in all simplicity, 'If you please, I am looking for the wicket gate.'

'The wicket gate! Humph. Well,' shading his eyes and staring around, 'I don't see one. Is it a white gate?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'You don't know! You are a very little girl to be finding your way by yourself in such a place as this. Do you know which side of the heath it is on?'

'No, sir.'

'Well, well,' rejoined my questioner, with great impatience, 'do you know where it leads to?'

'O, yes, sir; it leads to heaven.' Here at least was one question that I could answer; but never shall I forget the face of blank amazement with which he heard me. I was rather frightened at it, and began to explain, in a great hurry, that I had read in the Pilgrim's Progress about the wicket gate, and that Deborah had said I might go on pilgrimage; and after this incoherent account I began to cry piteously, and begged the gentleman, if he could not show me the way to the gate, to tell me the way home, because my relative would be so angry, so very angry, if I was late for dinner.

He had descended from his pony, and now asked abruptly, 'How old are you, child?'

Rh