“Who asked him that?”
“Be still! Don’t interrupt him. Let Walter tell his story!”
“I don’t know who asked that. The boy said that his little sister had on a blue dress and had dimples in her cheeks, and——”
“Just like Emma!”
“Yes, exactly like Emma. They told him that there was a little girl in heaven that looked just like that. She had come the year before, and had asked them to let her brother in, who would certainly inquire after her. But the boy could not go in. I have already said why.”
“Had the little girl always learned her lessons?”
“Of course! Don’t you see she had? Let Walter go on with his story!”
“It was sad that he could not get to see his sister any more. He felt that it hadn’t really been worth the trouble to die. ‘Oh, just let me in!’ he begged the gentleman at the door——”
“At the gate!” corrected several simultaneously, who, though untouched by the sublimity of Walter’s conception of death, were offended by the commonplaceness of the word door. But such things happen frequently.
“All right!” said Walter. He was ashamed that he had offended against propriety. “The gentleman at the gate said, ‘No!’ and then the poor boy returned to the earth.”