On the third day, while it was still almost dark, she woke suddenly, and sprang to her feet with a shock of joy tingling through her. She had not heard her name called, had not even been conscious of a voice, yet she knew that she had been called. Some mysterious, poignantly sweet summons had reached her, a summons which she knew instinctively she had been awaiting ever since she woke up for the first time in the cave. She stepped outside into the fragrant summer night. The morning star hung low in the sky, and in the east the first glimmer of dawn appeared. From somewhere close at hand a solitary bird uttered one clear, sweet note and a light breeze stirred over the grasses. Otherwise there was no sound save the voice of the great waterfall.

Then it came again —tingling through her —a call ringing down from some high place above. Standing there in the pale dawn, she looked eagerly around. Every nerve in her body surged with desire to respond to the call, and she felt her feet and legs tingling with an almost irresistible urge to go bounding up the mountains, but where was the way out of the canyon? The walls seemed to rise smooth and almost perpendicular on all sides, except at the end which was blocked by the waterfall.

Then, as she stood straining every nerve to find a possible means of exit, up from a nearby mossy bank sprang a mountain hart with the hind close behind him, just as she had seen them at the foot of the great Precipice of Injury. As she watched, the hart sprang onto the altar of rock, and from there with a great leap he reached a projecting ledge on the wall on the farther side of the ravine. Then, closely followed by the hind, he began springing up the great wall of the canyon.

Much-Afraid did not hesitate one instant. In a moment she was on the rock altar herself, the next, with a flying leap, she, too, reached the ledge on the wall. Then, using the same footholds as the hart and the hind, leaping and springing in a perfect ecstasy of delight, she followed them up the cliff, the hooves of the deer ringing on the rocks before her like little silver hammers.

In a moment or two all three were at the top of the canyon, and she was leaping up the mountainside toward the peak above, from which the summons had come. The rosy light in the east brightened, the snow on the summits of the mountains caught the glow and flushed like fire, and as she skipped and jumped from rock to rock excitedly the first sunbeams streamed over the mountaintop. He was there —standing on the peak —just as she had known he would be, strong and grand and glorious in the beauty of the sunrise, holding out both hands and calling to her with a great laugh, “You —with the hinds’ feet —jump over here.”

She gave one last flying spring, caught his hands and landed beside him on the topmost peak of the mountain. Around them in every direction towered other and greater ranges of snow mountains, whose summits soared into the sky higher than her sight could follow them. He was crowned, and dressed in royal robes, just as she had seen him once before when he had carried her up to the High Places, and had touched her with the live coal from off the golden Altar of Love. Then his face had been stern in its majesty and gravity, now it was alight with glory of joy which excelled anything which she had ever imagined.

“At last,” he said, as she knelt speechless at his feet, “at last you are here and the ‘night of weeping is over and joy comes to you in the morning.’” Then, lifting her up, he continued, “This is the time when you are to receive the fulfillment of the promises. Never am I to call you Much-Afraid again.” At that he laughed again and said, “I will write upon her a new name, the name of her God. The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psa. 84:11). “This is your new name,” he declared. “From henceforth you are Grace and Glory.”

Still she could not speak, but stood silent with joy and thanksgiving and awe and wonder.

Then he went on, “Now for the flower of Love and for the promise that when it blooms you will be loved in return.”

Grace and Glory spoke for the first time. “My Lord and King,” she said softly, “there is no flower of Love to bloom in my heart. It was burned to ashes on the altar at thy command.”

“No flower of Love?” he repeated, and laughed again so gently and joyfully that she could hardly bear it. “That is strange, Grace and Glory. How, then, did you get here? You are right on the High Places, in the Kingdom of Love itself. Open your heart and let us see what is there.”

At his word she laid bare her heart, and out came the sweetest perfume she had ever breathed and filled all the air around them with its fragrance. There in her heart was a plant whose shape and form could not be seen because it was covered all over with pure white, almost transparent blooms, from which the fragrance poured forth.

Grace and Glory gave a little gasp of wonder and thankfulness. “How did it get there, my Lord and King?” she exclaimed.

“Why, I planted it there myself,” was his laughing answer. “Surely you remember, down there by the sheep pool in the Valley of Humiliation, on the day that you promised to go with me to the High Places. It is the flower from the thorn-shaped seed.”

“Then, my Lord, what was the plant which the priest tore out of my heart when I was bound to the altar?”

“Do you remember, Grace and Glory, when you looked into your heart beside the pool, and found that my kind of love was not there at all —only the plant of Longing-to-be-loved?”

She nodded wonderingly.

“That was the natural human love which I tore out from your heart when the time was ripe and it was loose enough to be uprooted altogether so that the real Love could grow there alone and fill your whole heart.”

“You tore it out!” she repeated slowly and wonderingly, and then, “O my Lord and King, were you the priest? Were you there all the time, when I thought you had forsaken me?”

He bowed his head and she took his hands in hers, the scarred hands which had sown the thorn-shaped seed in her heart, and the hands with the grasp of steel which had torn out that love which had been the cause of all her pain, and kissed them while tears of joy fell on them.

“And now for the promise,” said he, “that when Love flowers in your heart you shall be loved again.” Taking her hand in his, he said, “Behold I have set my love upon thee and thou art mine . . . yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. 31:3). After that he said, “Give me the bag of stones of remembrance that you have gathered on your journey, Grace and Glory.”

She took it out and passed it to him and then he bade her hold out her hands. On doing so, he opened the little purse and emptied the contents into her hands. Then she gasped again with bewilderment and delight, for instead of the common, ugly stones she had gathered from the altars along the way, there fell into her hands a heap of glorious, sparkling jewels, very precious and very beautiful. As she stood there, half-dazzled by the glory of the flashing gems, she saw in his hand a circlet of pure gold.

“O thou who wast afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted,” he said, “behold I lay thy stones with fair colors.”

First he picked out of her hand one of the biggest and most beautiful of the stones —a sapphire, shining like the pavement of heaven, and set it in the center of the golden circlet. Then, taking a fiery, blood-red ruby, he set it on one side of the sapphire and an emerald on the other. After that he took the other stones —twelve in all —and arranged them on the circlet, then set it upon her head.

At that moment Grace and Glory remembered the cave in which she had sheltered from the floods, and how nearly she had succumbed to the temptation to discard as worthless those stones which now shone with glory and splendor in the crown upon her head. She remembered, too, the words which had sounded in her ears and had restrained her, “Hold fast that thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Supposing she had thrown them away, had discarded her trust in his promises, had gone back on her surrenders to his will? There could have been no jewels now to his praise and glory, and no crown for her to wear.

She marveled at the grace and love and tenderness and patience which had led and trained and guarded and kept poor faltering Much-Afraid, which had not allowed her to turn back, and which now changed all her trials into glory. Then she heard him speaking again and this time the smile on his face was almost more joyful than before.

“Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. . . . The King’s daughter is all glorious within. She shall be brought unto the King in clothing of wrought gold, in raiment of needlework. The virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the King’s palace” (Psa. 45:10-15). Then he added, “Now that you are to live with me here on the High Places, to go where I go, and to share my work in the valley below, it is fitting, Grace and Glory, that you should have companions and handmaidens, and I will bring them to you now.”

At that Grace and Glory regarded him earnestly, and there were almost tears in her eyes, for she remembered Suffering and Sorrow, the faithful companions whom he had given her before. It had been through their help and gentleness and patience she had been able to ascend the mountains to the High Places. All the time she had been with her Lord and King, receiving her new name, and being crowned with joy and glory, she had been thinking of them and wishing —yes, actually wishing and longing that they were there too, for why should she receive everything? They had endured the same journey, had supported and helped her, had been through the same trials and attacks of the enemy.

Now she was here and they were not. She opened her mouth to make her first request, to beg her Lord to let her keep the companions he had chosen in the beginning and who had brought her to the glory of the High Places. Before she could speak, however, he said with the same specially lovely smile, “Here are the handmaidens, Grace and Glory, whom I have chosen to be with you henceforth and forever.”

Two radiant, shining figures stepped forward, the morning sunshine glittering on their snowy garments, making them dazzling to look at. They were taller and stronger than Grace and Glory, but it was the beauty of their faces and the love shining in their eyes which caught at her heart and made her almost tremble with joy and admiration. They came toward her, their faces shining with mirth and gladness, but they said not a word.

“Who are you?” asked Grace and Glory softly. “Will you tell me your names?”

Instead of answering they looked at one another and smiled, then held out their hands as though to take hers in their own. At that familiar gesture, Grace and Glory knew them and cried out with a joy which was almost more than she could bear.

“Why! You are Suffering and Sorrow. Oh, welcome, welcome! I was longing to find you again.”

They shook their heads. “Oh, no!” they laughed, “we are no more Suffering and Sorrow than you are Much-Afraid. Don’t you know that everything that comes to the High Places is transformed? Since you brought us here with you, we returned into Joy and Peace.”

“Brought you here!” gasped Grace and Glory. “What an extraordinary way to express it! Why, from the first to last you dragged me here.”

Again they shook their heads and smiled as they answered, “No, we could never have come here alone, Grace and Glory. Suffering and Sorrow may not enter the Kingdom of Love, but each time you accepted us and put your hands in ours we began to change. Had you turned back or rejected us, we never could have come here.”

Looking at one another again, they laughed softly and said, “When first we saw you at the foot of the mountains, we felt a little depressed and despairing. You seemed so Much-Afraid of us, and shrank away and would not accept our help, and it looked so unlikely that any of us would ever get to the High Places. We told ourselves that we would have to remain Sorrow and Suffering always, but you see how graciously our Lord the King arranged for all of us, and you did bring us here. Now we are to be your companions and friends forever.”

With that they came up to her, put their arms around her, and all three embraced and kissed one another with a love and thankfulness and joy beyond words to express. So with a new name, and united to the King and crowned with glory, Grace and Glory, accompanied by her companions and friends, came to the High Places and was led into the Kingdom of Love.