“The Stones!” Memory pierced Frances, and she shrank a little involuntarily. But: “Tell me about the Stones!” she said.
“I go and play there,” said Ruth. “Some people are afraid of them. I don’t know why. The fairies play their pipes there, and I lie and listen. And sometimes, when they think I am asleep, the biggest stones talk. But I don’t know what they say,” she added quaintly. “It isn’t our language at all. I daresay the fairies would understand, but they always run away and hide when the stones begin.”
“What are the Stones?” said Frances.
“Oh, just stones, the same as God made when He made the earth. They stand in a big circle. I don’t know why He put them like that, but they have been so ever since the world began. I expect He had a reason,” said the child. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, dear,” said Frances gently. “And you like to go there?”
“Yes,” said Ruth. She hesitated a moment as one to whom a subject is sacred; then: “My mother went to heaven from there,” she said. “So of course God must come there sometimes. I hope He’ll come there some day when I’m there.”
“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” said Frances.
“Afraid of God? Oh no! Why should anyone be afraid of God? He loves us,” said the child.
Frances kissed the upturned face that could not see the sun. “Bless you, little darling!” she said. “Is there anyone who wouldn’t love you, I wonder?”
Ruth left her soon after, and Nurse Dolly came in, brisk and efficient, to prepare her for the day.