This was a pleasant thing for Bessie to hear; but she put aside her own pleasure for the present, and thought only of being the “comfit” her poor little friend called her. I wonder if there was any one among all the people who knew her, who could have said that our dear Bessie was not more or less of a comfort to them.
Her sweet sympathy and gentle tenderness soon did Belle good, and Bessie let her talk on about her mother as long as she would.
Belle had been very bright and cheerful lately,—thanks to the friends with whom she had been so much thrown,—and it was a good while since she had had a fit of longing for her mother; but the coming to her home had brought her great loss back to her, and just now she could think of nothing else.
“Do you know where they put my mamma before she went to heaven?” said Belle.
“No. Where?” answered Bessie.
“Do you see those high trees over there, Bessie? They put her where little brother and sister are, and ever so many grandpas and grandmas.”
“But they didn’t put her soul there,” said Bessie.
“No,” said Belle, “’cause that was God’s part, and it went to him. And then she couldn’t speak or hear me or see me, but was all deaded away; and so they put the rest of her over there, and put a great many flowers over her. But that was a long, long while ago, before I went away to the North, and I didn’t see where they put mamma this ever so long. Maybe the flowers are all faded. Will you come and see, Bessie?”
“We must ask mamma or your papa first,” said Bessie.
“They would let us,” said Belle: “it’s a very safe place. I used to often go there when mamma was alive, to be by little brother and sister, and she is there now. There couldn’t any danger come to us where mamma is: could there, Bessie?”