"And you don't suppose there is a happy land?"
"I know there is; I'm going to sing there," she said, so quickly, so decidedly that the men looked at each other.
"Going to sing there?"
"Yes, sir. Mother said so. She used to sing to me until she was very sick. Then she said she wasn't going to sing any more on earth, but up in heaven."
"Well—and what then?"
"And then she died, sir," said the child; tears brimming down the dark cheek now ominously flushed scarlet.
John Harvey was silent for a few moments.
Presently he said: "Well, if she died, my little girl, you may live, you know."
"Oh, no, sir! no, sir! I'd rather go there; and be with mother. Sometimes I have a dreadful pain in my side and cough as she did. There won't be any pain up there, sir; it's a beautiful world!"
"How do you know?" faltered on the lips of the skeptic.