Tom.

"May I teach you to read?" asked Genevieve, looking into Hepsa's eyes
entreatingly. The child turned away her head as she answered,

"I haven't any time. I have to stay at home."

"But," pursued Genevieve, "I'll come down to your house, and bring some
books, and help you tend the baby. O! don't you love the baby?"

"No! he is _too_ cross," was the crusty reply.

"But, he is a baby; he don't know any better."

"That don't make any difference."

"Yes it does, too; your big brother knew better than to kill your pretty
pussy, and that is why it was so naughty in him to do it." This was a
new kind of argument for Hepsa; but she thought over it a moment, and
then told her little teacher she thought she might be right. "I almost
wish you would come to teach me to read. I don't know but I might like
it; and then it would be rather good to see you. Now, are you sure there
is such a person as God?" said Hepsa, glancing at Genevieve from the
corners of her eyes.

"Of course I am, Hepsa; who do you think made the sky and the ground,
the trees and grass?"

"I don't know," replied Hepsa.

"And the sun and the moon, and the stars," continued Genevieve, with a
mysterious tone. Hepsa shook her head by way of saying no.

"And all the fathers and mothers and children?" at which question Hepsa
looked _so_ perplexed.

"I asked mother once," she said, musingly, "who made all these things;
but she told me I'd better be minding the cradle. I guess she didn't
know; but I've always had spells of wondering about it."

Genevieve looked very gravely at Hepsa as she said,

"It was God who made all these things."

"Well, I don't know but it was," replied Hepsa.

"But I _know_ it was; the Bible says so, and father and mother say so,
too; beside, I feel it in my heart, when I see the sun and the flowers,
and everything looks so pretty."

"Do you?" cried Hepsa, seeming to feel a new interest in her companion.
"I wonder if you ever hear pretty voices in the trees when the wind
blows, and in the night when it is warm, and you are looking up to the
moon, and see the light that comes down through the holes in the sky,
does something great seem to come close to you?"

"Why, yes, Hepsa, ever so many times, and I think it is God. And when
Katie leaves me to go to sleep, and it is all dark, I know God comes
then, for I feel him all around, and the room seems so big--bigger than
it ever did before, bigger than the garden, bigger than