'Oh, there will be no trouble about that!' exclaimed Calladon cheerfully, 'for will not my golden sash press against my heart whenever I go wrong, and remind me to turn back?'
'No, for you will not wear the golden sash any more,' replied the Master. 'You are no longer a little child, and you must no longer depend on what touches your heart from the outside, but on what moves it from within.'
'Well, I think I shall like that better, on the whole,' said Calladon. 'It will make me feel more like a man. But what is it that I ought not to do, dear Master?'
'You ought not to lose faith in the lamp,' answered the Master, 'for it gives you all you have, and all you are. And you ought not to leave Abra, for Abra only is Abracadabra. And you ought not to light a lamp of your own, for it would lead you into darkness.'
'That is all I need tell you now,' said the Master; 'for if you obey these three rules, you will not need to know more, and if you disobey them, nothing more that I could say would help you.'
'I would have done all that without being told,' said Calladon; 'and the only thing I don't like is having nobody to see or to speak to.'
'I have taken care about that,' replied the Master, with a smile, 'and you will not be left entirely alone. When you wake up to-morrow morning, you will find a little girl beside you. She is to be your playmate and companion. She can help you to be happier and better than you have ever been before; but she can also make you worse and more miserable than if you were left by yourself. It will be according as you treat her.'
'Perhaps I had better not have her,' said Calladon.
'You must run the risk; for without risk nothing that is really good can be got,' replied the Master. 'She will not suggest either good or evil to you; but if your thoughts are good she will know it, and will help you to carry them out; and if your thoughts are evil, she will think evil too, and will give you the means of doing it.'
'Does she know all this?' Calladon asked.
'She will know nothing except from you, and as long as you are obedient to what I have told you, she will be obedient to you. But if you become disobedient, she will sooner or later begin to rule you; and whenever that happens you will be sure to suffer.'