"No," the old woman said, "I can't do that. It's too wonderful for any
of us to understand. But it's no more wonderful than many things that
are true, and I've heard tales of it before. Often one stays in the
land of the Good People, and in other places, too, and thinks that the
time has been short, when it has been long. Shall I tell you what
happened once to a monk--a holy man--much more wonderful than what
happened to you?
"One day this monk was in the garden of the monastery where he lived,
reading in his book. He was reading in the Psalms, where it says, 'For
a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past. And as
a watch in the night, things that are counted nothing, shall their
years be.'
"And he found it hard to believe that even to God Himself a thousand
years could seem no more than a day. As he was thinking of this, a
bird in a tree near him began to sing, and the song was so beautiful
that he forgot the psalm that he had been reading and his thoughts
about it, and only listened to the bird.
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