“And what is it you see?”

“The American stores, mistress, and the American little Kinder-schools, and the American great college-schools, and the American railcar shops, and the American hotels, and the American markets, and the Americans, mistress.”

“And who goes with you on these visits, Sky-High?”

An attack of blinking seized little Sky-High.  “The consul, he goes.”

Mrs. Van Buren drove into town next day.  While there she made a call upon the Chinese consular agent.  Lucy was with her.  Consul Bradley appeared to have little fresh information to give.

“The boy’s father is a good man,” he said.  “Like the wise fathers everywhere he craves knowledge for his son.  I promised him Sky-High should see something of Boston, and I do for him all I can.”

“Mother,” said Lucy on the way home, “we might be nicer to Sky-High.  Listen!”

Her mother listened to Lucy’s plan, and gave permission.

When Lucy got home she said to Sky-High, “We want you to go to church with us; and Charlie and I want you to go with us to our Sunday school.  There are Chinese Sunday schools in Boston, but we wish you to be in ours.”

“I will have to wear my queue, and my flowing clothes, Lucy,” said the boy.

“But, Sky-High, you can braid your braid close, and wind it around your head, and put on your black tunic, and you shall sit in our pew.  Besides, anyway, it would be proper for a person of China to wear his braid down his back after the custom of his country.”

“You speak as kindly as would the daughter of a wang!” said Sky-High, with his beautiful bow of ceremony.

On Sunday the little Chinaman dressed his hair becomingly and put on black clothes, with white ruffles.  He sat in the Van Buren pew, beside Charlie.  He listened to the organ like one entranced.  It was Easter Day, and the house was full of the odor of lilies.  The text for the service was these words of Jesus:  “If any man keep my sayings he shall never see death.”

The “Joss preacher,” as he called the minister, came and spoke to him, and invited him to go into the Sunday-school room.

In the evening he made Chinese tea, and served it in the library, and afterward sat with the family.

Suddenly he said, “Mistress, what were the ‘sayings’ of Jesus?  Sky-High wishes to live on forever.”

Mrs. Van Buren read the Beatitudes.

“And what is the heaven, mistress?”

“Sky-High,” said Mrs. Van Buren, very earnestly, to her little servant, “I scarcely know how to tell you what heaven is, only that we surely have a part in its building here by our Loving and our Helping here.  You know how dear it is to be with those you love, you know how pleasant it is to meet again those you have helped.  That is the law of the soul.  God loves and helps us, and will rejoice in having us abide with him, and that will make us happy; and all whom we have made better and happier here will help make our heaven for us.  Heaven is the gladness of Loving and Helping as nearly as I know.”