ittle Cynthia----"

"Wait," she breathed, and he held her closer. He had come to love her
very much, though he had taken her unwillingly.

"Is it true? But no one would say such a thing if it were not. I had
been asleep. I woke just as he said that. Perhaps I had been dreaming
about our being together. And it seemed at first as if my tongue was
stiff and I couldn't even make a sound. Did he go to heaven without me?"

Oh, what should he say to comfort her! She had so many feelings far
under the surface.

"My little dear," and his voice was infinitely fond, "I want to tell you
that he loved your mother tenderly. No one could have been better loved.
In the course of a few hours she was snatched away from him. You were so
little--five years ago. I doubt if there was ever a day in which he did
not think of her. When you are grown and come to love some one with the
strength of your whole heart, you will understand how great it is. And
when the summons came for him his first thought was that he should see
her, and with the next he must find a new home for his little girl, so
he gave you to me. It is very hard just now, but you must think how
happy they are together. Perhaps they both know you are here, where you
will be cared for and made happy, for we all love you. Every one has not
the same way of showing love, but Cousin Elizabeth has done everything
she could for you this winter. And we don't want to lose you. You won't
grudge them a few years together in that happy place?"

"Oh, are you quite sure there _is_ a heaven?"

Oh, Cynthia, you are not the first one who has asked to have it
certified.

"Yes, dear; very sure," in the tone of faith.

"He loved mother very much?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence. He felt the slow beating of her little heart.

"Then I ought to be content, since he gave me to you, when he knew he
was going away."

"It would have been very sad if you had been left alone there. Out of
his great love he planned it this way, thinking the tidings would not
come so hard after a while. And now you can always recall him as you saw
him last and just think, in a moment of time God called and he stepped
over the narrow space that seems such a mystery to us and met _her_. I
wish we didn't invest death with so much that is painful, for it is
God's way of calling us to a better land where there are no more
partings. Sometime you and I will go over to them."

"I shouldn't feel afraid with you," she