“Papa,” said Connie at length, and I was beside her in a moment. Her face looked almost glorified with delight: there was a hush of that awe upon it which is perhaps one of the deepest kinds of delight. She put out her thin white hand, took hold of a button of my coat, drew me down towards her, and said in a whisper:
“Don’t you think God is here, papa?”
“Yes, I do, my darling,” I answered.
“Doesn’t he enjoy this?”
“Yes, my dear. He wouldn’t make us enjoy it if he did not enjoy it. It would be to deceive us to make us glad and blessed, while our Father did not care about it, or how it came to us. At least it would amount to making us no longer his children.”
“I am so glad you think so. I do. And I shall enjoy it so much more now.”
She could hardly finish her sentence, but burst out sobbing so that I was afraid she would hurt herself. I saw, however, that it was best to leave her to quiet herself, and motioned to the rest to keep back and let her recover as she could. The emotion passed off in a summer shower, and when I went round once more, her face was shining just like a wet landscape after the sun has come out and Nature has begun to make gentle game of her own past sorrows. In a little while, she was merry—merrier, notwithstanding her weakness, than I think I had ever seen her before.
“Look at that comical sparrow,” she said. “Look how he cocks his head first on one side and then on the other. Does he want us to see him? Is he bumptious, or what?”
“I hardly know, my dear. I think sparrows are very like schoolboys; and I suspect that if we understood the one class thoroughly, we should understand the other. But I confess I do not yet understand either.”
“Perhaps you will when Charlie and Harry are old enough to go to school,” said Connie.
“It is my only chance of making any true acquaintance with the sparrows,” I answered. “Look at them now,” I exclaimed, as a little crowd of them suddenly appeared where only one had stood a moment before, and exploded in objurgation and general unintelligible excitement. After some obscure fluttering of wings and pecking, they all vanished except two, which walked about in a dignified manner, trying apparently to seem quite unconscious each of the other’s presence.
“I think it was a political meeting of some sort,” said Connie, laughing merrily.
“Well, they have this advantage over us,” I answered, “that they get through their business whatever it may be, with considerably greater expedition than we get through ours.”
A short silence followed, during which Connie lay contemplating everything.
“What do you think we girls are like, then, papa?” she asked at length. “Don’t say you don’t know, now.”
“I ought to know something more about you than I do about schoolboys. And I think I do know a little about girls—not much though. They puzzle me a good deal sometimes. I know what a great-hearted woman is, Connie.”
“You can’t help doing that, papa,” interrupted Connie, adding with her old roguishness, “You mustn’t pass yourself off for very knowing for that. By the time Wynnie is quite grown up, your skill will be tried.”
“I hope I shall understand her then, and you too, Connie.”
A shadow, just like the shadow of one of those white clouds above us, passed over her face, and she said, trying to smile:
“I shall never grow up, papa. If I live, I shall only be a girl at best—a creature you can’t understand.”
“On the contrary, Connie, I think I understand you almost as well as mamma. But there isn’t so much to understand yet, you know, as there will be.”
Her merriment returned.
“Tell me what girls are like, then, or I shall sulk all day because you say there isn’t so much in me as in mamma.”
“Well, I think, if the boys are like sparrows, the girls are like swallows. Did you ever watch them before rain, Connie, skimming about over the lawn as if it were water, low towards its surface, but never alighting? You never see them grubbing after worms. Nothing less than things with wings like themselves will satisfy them. They will be obliged to the earth only for a little mud to build themselves nests with. For the rest, they live in the air, and on the creatures of the air. And then, when they fancy the air begins to be uncivil, sending little shoots of cold through their warm feathers, they vanish. They won’t stand it. They’re off to a warmer climate, and you never know till you find they’re not there any more. There, Connie!”
“I don’t know, papa, whether you are making game of us or not. If you are not, then I wish all you say were quite true of us. If you are then I think it is not quite like you to be satirical.”
“I am no believer in satire, Connie. And I didn’t mean any. The swallows are lovely creatures, and there would be no harm if the girls were a little steadier than the swallows. Further satire than that I am innocent of.”
“I don’t mind that much, papa. Only I’m steady enough, and no thanks to me for it,” she added with a sigh.
“Connie,” I said, “it’s all for the sake of your wings that you’re kept in your nest.”
She did not stay out long this first day, for the life the air gave her soon tired her weak body. But the next morning she was brighter and better, and longing to get up and go out again. When she was once more laid on her couch on the lawn, in the midst of the world of light and busy-ness, in which the light was the busiest of all, she said to me:
“Papa, I had such a strange dream last night: shall I tell it you?”
“If you please, my dear. I am very fond of dreams that have any sense in them—or even of any that have good nonsense in them. I woke this morning, saying to myself, ‘Dante, the poet, must have been a respectable man, for he was permitted by the council of Florence to carry the Nicene Creed and the Multiplication Table in his coat of arms.’ Now tell me your dream.”
Connie laughed. All the household tried to make Connie laugh, and generally succeeded. It was quite a triumph to Charlie or Harry, and was sure to be recounted with glee at the next meal, when he succeeded in making Connie laugh.
“Mine wasn’t a dream to make me laugh. It was too dreadful at first, and too delightful afterwards. I suppose it was getting out for the first time yesterday that made me dream it. I thought I was lying quite still, without breathing even, with my hands straight down by my sides and my eyes closed. I did not choose to open them, for I knew that if I did I should see nothing but the inside of the lid of my coffin. I did not mind it much at first, for I was very quiet, and not uncomfortable. Everything was as silent as it should be, for I was ten feet and a half under the surface of the earth in the churchyard. Old Sogers was not far from me on one side, and that was a comfort; only there was a thick wall of earth between. But as the time went on, I began to get uncomfortable. I could not help thinking how long I should have to wait for the resurrection. Somehow I had forgotten all that you teach us about that. Perhaps it was a punishment—the dream—for forgetting it.”
“Silly child! Your dream is far better than your reflections.”
“Well, I’ll