“But yonder,” said Mary, pointing upward, where a young moon rode the sky like a golden shallop laden with pearls.
“I know nothing of that,” answered Catharine, with momentary impatience. “It is at best a land of dreams and conjectures to us all, but we will not talk of that deep mystery—the future—my child. I would not willingly disturb any belief that can make you happier. I can dream no longer, hope no more—mine will be a life of wild action, and then——”
“And then——” repeated Mary, turning her pure eyes upward, “and then, there is a God above, and rest, eternal rest—yet eternal action too, with his angels.”
“Who taught you these things; surely this is not the language of a frontier settlement?”
“I don’t know,” said Mary, with sweet thoughtfulness, “such ideas spring up most naturally, I should think, in the woods which God alone has touched; men teach us words, but thought comes to us, I am sure, as flowers spring from the grass; we scarcely know when they shoot, bud, or blossom, till their breath is all around us. I cannot remember, lady, that any one ever taught me to think.”
“Not the missionary?”
“Perhaps it might have been unawares—but no, he told me once, I remember, that God himself sent me many thoughts that other children never have, in order to be company for me when I sit alone in the woods. So, after all, dear lady, the missionary understands what they mean, and tells me; that is all. The thoughts come from God himself.”
Catharine Montour was weeping, for that gentle girl had found the well-spring of her nature; laying her cheek down upon those golden tresses, which remained on her bosom, silent from tender reverence.
“Are these thoughts so strange that you wonder at them?” asked Mary.
“Yes, they are very strange to me now.”