"God lives there, and when we die we go to Him."
"Mother has told me so often and often, but I want to understand."
"Inquisitive little maid!" exclaimed Felix. "Is not that a beautiful place?" pointing upwards.
"It is pretty--and bright; that cloud looks like blue-and-white feathers. Mother says we'll go to heaven if we're good. And that's heaven. I'm going to be very good. But I want to know! How can we be here and there at the same time?"
Felix felt that it was a hard question to answer, and he despaired of making it clear to so young an understanding.
"See now," he said, with an attempt at simplicity; "you are a little girl. By-and-by you will become a woman; then you will grow older and older, and your hair will turn white, and you will be an old woman. When we are old, we die."
"Must we die--all of us?"
"All of us, little one. But God gives us a soul which is always young; it never grows old, and when our bodies are worn out, our souls go back to God and heaven."
"I give my soul to God to keep," murmured Pollypod, repeating a line which she said in her prayers every night. She did not understand, but she had faith in Felix. She murmured the words so softly that Felix did not hear them.
"So that our body is here, and our soul is there, little maid. Earth takes care of one, and heaven takes care of the other."