"Chilian, you make that child of as much importance as if she was a woman grown. You will have your hands full by and by. She will think every one must bow down to her and consult her whims and fancies."
"We will see;" nodding indifferently.
He didn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned the subject.
She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by him, looking over a very choice book of engravings.
"Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice color. Do you like it?"
He shook his head.
"It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?"
She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent.
"You need not wear black—I wish you would not. I want you to get real well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and refrain from grief."
She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book.