Williams house, and the story
of the old minister.

"Why, I thought religion made people good and pleasant----" Then she
checked herself, for often Cousin Elizabeth was _not_ pleasant. And she
seemed more religious than Cousin Eunice. And Cousin Chilian rarely
scolded or said a cross word--he never talked about religion, but he
went to church on Sunday; they all did. She studied the Catechism, she
could learn easily when she had a mind to, but she didn't understand it
at all. She shocked Elizabeth by her irreverent questions. There was the
old horn-book primer with--

"In Adam's fall
We sinned all."

"I don't see how that could be when we were not there!" she said almost
defiantly.

"It means the nature we inherited."

"But I don't think that fair!"

"You don't know, you never can understand until you are in a state of
grace. Don't ask such impertinent questions. You are a little heathen
child."

Then she asked Cousin Chilian what "a state of grace" meant.

"I think it is the willingness to do right, to be truthful, kindly,
obliging. It is all comprised in the Golden Rule--to love God with all
your heart and your neighbor as yourself, not to do anything to him that
you would not like to have done to yourself, and to do to him whatever
you would like him to do for you. That is enough for a little girl."

"That sounds like Confucius," she said thoughtfully.

But she went back to Roger Williams when Bentley said he was one of his
heroes.

"What did he do?" she asked, interested.

"Well, he founded the City of Providence. And if William Penn is to be
honored for founding a city of brotherly love, Roger Williams deserves
it for establishing a city where different sects should agree without
persecuting each other. You see, they banished him from Salem back to
England because he thought a man had some right to his own opinions, so
long as he worshipped God. So he went to Providence instead. He walked
all the way with just his pocket compass to guide him, and how he must
have worked to make a dwelling-place for himself and his friends in the
dead of winter! There were some Quakers already there, who had been
banished from other settlements, and they all resolved to be friendly.
Yes, I call him a hero!"

Cynthia studied the house with the little courtyard and the great tree
shading it.

"Polly said it was the Witch House," she remarked.

"That was because there were trials for witchcraf