"Will you come with me to see my mother's grave, Miss Layton? it isn't very far, and the grave-yard is very pretty; there are so many trees, and bushes, and flowers planted round the graves."
"Yes, Ellie, we will go there, if you wish it."
"I love to come here since mother died," said Ella, as they stood by Mrs. Clinton's grave. "Sometimes I sit down on the grass, and lay my head on the grave, and talk to mother, and it seems as if she could hear me; but Oh, I wish she could speak to me! Oh, if I could only put my arms round her neck once more, and give her just one more kiss!" and Ella burst into tears, and laid her face against the cold tomb-stone, while the tears fell like rain on the grass that covered her mother's breast. Miss Layton's tears were falling too.
"Your mother is not here, dear child," said she. "'Tis only the senseless body that lies there, but your mother lives in heaven."
"Yes, I know she does, because she was so good, that I am sure God would take her there."
"You don't mean, my dear child, that God would save her because she was good?"
"Why, yes, Miss Layton; it's the good people that go to heaven, isn't it?"
"My dear Ella, there is none that doeth good and sinneth not; 'they are all gone out of the way; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good—no, not one.'"
"But you said my mother was in heaven!"