“No, it isn’t; but I’ll think about what you’ve said, Winnie. I can’t think where all your grown-up ideas come from. Ronald and I never troubled our heads over such things when we were little—and we don’t very much now for the matter of that. What is it has changed you lately, Winnie?”
The boy looked into her face with a half-troubled, half-playful look, which Winnie answered by a very bright smile. She did not reply, for they had reached the church by this time; but she held Charley’s hand very fast as he led her to the pew.
Winifred felt almost as if she were dreaming, as she sat in her accustomed nook beside her mother, and looked round the grand old church, whose every detail was as familiar to her eyes as were the pictures and panelling of her nursery walls.
It was only six weeks since she had sat there last—only six weeks—but what a long, long time it seemed to the child!
It was almost like heaven the little girl thought when the organ began to play. The sunshine streaming through the coloured windows, seemed like a halo of glory. Everything was very solemn, very beautiful, and very peaceful. Winifred said again and again in her heart:
“I am so glad God let me come once again.”
Shadows of the darting swallows crossed the sunny windows now and again. Yes, the swallows never forgot her, Winifred thought, and the swallows were always fond of flying round the church. Dreamily the child recalled some verse of Holy Writ, which told how the swallows had made a nest in the sanctuary of the God of Hosts.
“I know God loves the swallows. I know it is He who takes care of them when they go, and shows them the way to go. He is sure—oh quite, quite sure to take care of me too.”
The clergyman’s text seemed to chime in peculiarly happily with the little girl’s thoughts:
“Suffer little children to come unto Me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”