“Where the Golden Butterfly went?” whispered Paula.
“You saw it?”
“Yes. With beautiful wings all of gold. Father knew it was like that. Has his soul gone away with it? Up and up and beyond the clouds and through the sky and to the other world?”
And John Sheldon answered simply, saying:
“Yes, my dear.”
Paula was very still again, her eyes thoughtful.
“What will we do with—him?” she asked after a long silence, the first hint of tears in her eyes.
Then he told her, explaining as he would to Bill and Bet, as one talks with a credulous child, hiding those things upon which man is so prone to look as horrible, showing as best he knew that there is beauty in death. He spoke softly, very gently with her, and her eyes, lifted to him, might have been those of little Bet.
“You will get flowers for him,” he said at the end. “Hundreds and hundreds of flowers. You will put them all about him; we will make him a pretty, soft bed of them; we will cover him with them. And every year, in the spring, other flowers will grow here and blossom and drop their leaves on his place. And—and, little Paula, maybe he will be watching you and smiling at you and happy—”
It spite of him his voice grew hoarse. Paula sat now with her face hidden in her crossed arms. He could see a tear splash to her knee.