Volume I Part 28 (1/2)

”What?” said Mr. Carleton, inexpressibly curious to get at the workings of the child's mind, which was not easy, for Fleda was never very forward to talk of herself; ? ”what were you thinking? I want to know how you could get such a thing into your head.”

”It wasn't very strange,” said Fleda. ”The stars made me think of heaven, and grandpa's being there, and then I thought how he was ready to go there, and that made him ready to die ?”

”I wouldn't think of such things, Elfie,” said Mr. Carleton, after a few minutes.

”Why not, Sir?” said Fleda, quickly.

”I don't think they are good for you.”

”But, Mr. Carleton,” said Fleda, gently, ? ”if I don't think about it, how shall I ever be ready to die?”

”It is not fit for you,” said he, evading the question, ? ”it is not necessary now, ? there's time enough. You are a little body, and should have none but gay thoughts.”

”But, Mr. Carleton,” said Fleda, with timid earnestness, ?

”don't you think one could have gay thoughts better if one knew one was ready to die?”

”What makes a person ready to die, Elfie?” said her friend, disliking to ask the question, but yet more unable to answer hers, and curious to hear what she would say.

”Oh, to be a Christian,” said Fleda.

”But I have seen Christians,” said Mr. Carleton, ”who were no more ready to die than other people.”

”Then they were make-believe Christians,” said Fleda, decidedly.

”What makes you think so?” said her friend, carefully guarding his countenance from anything like a smile.

”Because,” said Fleda, ”grandpa was ready, and my father was ready, and my mother, too; and I know it was because they were Christians.”

”Perhaps your kind of Christians are different from my kind,”

said Mr. Carleton, carrying on the conversation half in spite of himself. ”What do you mean by a Christian, Elfie?”

”Why, what the Bible means,” said Fleda, looking at him with innocent earnestness.

Mr. Carleton was ashamed to tell her he did not know what that was, or he was unwilling to say what he felt would trouble the happy confidence she had in him. He was silent; but as they rode on, a bitter wish crossed his mind that he could have the simple purity of the little child in his arms; and he thought he would give his broad acres, supposing it possible that religion could be true, ? in exchange for that free happy spirit that looks up to all its possessions in heaven.

CHAPTER XI.

Starres are poore books, and oftentimes do misse; This book of starres lights to eternall blisse.

GEORGE HERBERT.

The voyage across the Atlantic was not, in itself, at all notable. The first half of the pa.s.sage was extremely unquiet, and most of the pa.s.sengers uncomfortable to match. Then the weather cleared; and the rest of the way, though lengthened out a good deal by the tricks of the wind, was very fair and pleasant.

Fifteen days of tossing and sea-sickness had brought little Fleda to look like the ghost of herself. So soon as the weather changed, and sky and sea were looking gentle again, Mr. Carleton had a mattress and cus.h.i.+ons laid in a sheltered corner of the deck for her, and carried her up. She had hardly any more strength than a baby.

”What are you looking at me so for, Mr. Carleton?” said she, a little while after he had carried her up, with a sweet serious smile that seemed to know the answer to her question.

He stooped down and clasped her little thin hand, as reverentially as if she really had not belonged to the earth.

”You are more like a sprite than I like to see you just now,”