"I can't help wondering often," the child pursued, with evident heaviness of spirit, "how I shall manage to be a profitabubble servant."
"A what?"
"Well, not like the unprofitabubble servant that had to be cast into outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing—"
"Nonsense! all that has nothing to do with you! He said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me.'"
"You think, if I died now, I'd go to heaven?"
"Of course you would. All little children go to heaven."
"All children who aren't too wicked," corrected Ethan, gravely, with misgiving.
"There is no such thing as a wicked child," interrupted his mentor, impatiently; then, catching herself up—"They may be foolish and wayward"—she looked down on him sternly—"and they may have to be severely punished on this earth, but they don't know enough to be wicked, not enough to deserve being shut out of heaven."
"I've heard Grandfather Tallmadge say somebody—I think it was some saint—had seen"—he lowered his voice—"had seen an infant in hell, a span long." He shuddered.
"Nonsense!" retorted Mrs. Gano, angrily. "No saint ever saw anything of the sort—nor no sane creature. It was that John Calvin."