"Oh, Miss Beryl!" exclaimed Lucy, shocked at the irreverence of which the child in her ignorance seemed to her to be guilty. "Surely you know better than that! Jesus was the Son of God, 'who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven.'"
"But what does it mean about the resurrection?" persisted Beryl. "Will dead people, will my mamma live again? Shall I see her? Do tell me, Lucy!"
"Oh, hush! Miss Beryl; you are talking too fast," said Lucy, giving a warning glance at the bed, as she felt herself unable to answer the child's questions.
"You should ask your clergyman those questions, my dear," said Mrs. Despard, gently.
"Oh, I could not ask him anything," said Beryl emphatically.
No one spoke for some minutes after this. Beryl was disturbed by an irritating sense of mystification. Lucy was uncomfortably conscious that she, as a good Church-woman and regular communicant, ought to be able to give a satisfactory explanation of the truth she professed to believe. As for the sick woman, she was as anxious as Beryl to know all that was meant by the words the child had repeated. Coral was the only one at ease; and as she sat on the bed close to her mother's pillow, her large dark eyes were turned on the others with the open gaze of childish wonder.
Thus Mr. Hollys found them when he came to enquire how Mrs. Despard was.
"You are looking rather better to-day," he said to her; "do you feel so?"
"Yes, I am a little stronger," she replied; "if only my mind were at peace. I have been thinking a great deal about my brother this morning. Do you think there is any possibility of finding him? Although he could not forgive me, he might be kind to little Coral for my sake."
"I do not know; but we can make enquiries," said Mr. Hollys. "I will do what I can to find him. But make your mind easy about the child; if he does not claim her, I will be her friend. She shall have a home here as long as she needs one."