"Would you like to know where, and what, your home is to be, little one?" he said, smoothing her hair with one disengaged hand.
"If you please, but I am sure it will be very nice, so near her."
"Do you wish very much to be with her?"
"Indeed I do, and if they could send us word from heaven, I know her father and mother would say it was best."
"But there is no relationship between you," said he, willing to probe her frank soul to the bottom.
"Relationship, sir," answered the child, with the most touching smile that ever lighted human face, "oh, sir, haven't you seen how lovely she is? And I"—
The child paused and spread her little hands open, as much as to say, "and I! could two creatures so opposite be of the same blood?"
"I think you more lovely by half than she is, my child," cried Enoch Sharp, drawing the hand, still warm with her grateful kisses, across his eyes; "good children are never ugly, you know."
The child looked at him wonderingly.
"You have seen a thunder-cloud," he said, answering the look, "how leaden and dismal it is of itself; but let the sun shine strike it and its edges are fringed with rosy gold, its masses turn purple and warm crimson, it breaks apart and rainbows leap from its bosom, bridging the sky with light; do you understand, my child?"