The little Chinaman seemed to make no very great task of learning "the art of the American home." His small deft olive hand was more or less upon everything, from cellar to attic.

"I think our house-boy knew how to keep a house beautiful, mother, before he came to our country," said Lucy one day.

"Well, perhaps he was a wang," said her mother, "and did live in a palace!"

"Doesn't Mr. Consul Bradley know about him, mother?"

"Consul Bradley says Sky-High's father is a good man, and that Sky-High is a good boy with a bright mind. Of course, Lucy, there are nice Chinese people and nice Chinese homes."

Certainly the little house-boy was wonderfully energetic. He was able to save every Thursday for himself, and always went into Boston on that day and, as Mrs. Van Buren learned, visited the consular office.

One day Mrs. Van Buren asked, "What do you do all day in town, Sky-High?"

"I see Boston, mistress."

"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."

"That heaven—it is beautiful, mistress," said little Sky-High. In his own country, it had been pleasant music to hear the "prayer-wheels" go round in the temples, whirling the paper prayers fastened upon them, but the pleasure he felt at this moment was different.

"I will help many, mistress," he said. "Perhaps Sky-High will help the boys that pull his queue on the street when he goes errands to the stores. Sky-High will go with his mistress and her children other Sundays, if he may. Goodnight, mistress!"

So ended the Easter Sunday of the little Chinaman.