"You cannot understand that, Fred? Neither can I. But the good God does many things which we cannot understand, and yet we know they are. And as we are told by One whom we can trust that we shall live again after our body dies, we must believe it. I believe it, Fred, with all my heart."
"But," argued Fred, "I have always thought that life is the same in men as in animals, and when an animal dies, it can never be made alive again. I have noticed that myself."
At this moment, the conversation was interrupted, for they saw the doctor in the garden, and aunty hastened to join him, as she had promised to visit his cauliflowers with him this evening.
Fred sat still lost in thought; he did not care for cauliflowers.
CHAPTER IX.
A LAST JOURNEY AND A FIRST.
A large travelling-carriage passed by the door of the doctor's house, in which sat alone, a lady clothed in black. It was Clarissa, who had come to carry little Nora to her home by the Rhine. The doctor's four children were standing in the garden, and they watched it as it passed, thinking what a sad journey its occupant must have had. Their aunt stood at an upper window watching it also, and as it disappeared round the corner she beckoned Fred to come up to her in his room. He came running up the stairs.
"See, Fred! I am clearing your room up a little. There are a great many useless things here; why should you keep them? See; in this box is a dead creature; let's begin with this, and throw it away"; and as she spoke she carried the box towards a window.
"What are you doing, aunty?" cried the boy. "That is my very best chrysalis; it will turn into a beautiful moth by and by; one of the finest of our butterflies, with wonderful marks on its wings."