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 witchcraft. You are too young to hear about that," Chilian said decisively, with a glance at Bentley.