"It is not fit for you," said he, evading the question, "it is not necessary now, there's time enough. You are a little body, and should have none but gay thoughts."
"But, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with timid earnestness, "don't you think one could have gay thoughts better if one knew one was ready to die?"
"What makes a person ready to die, Elfie?" said her friend, disliking to ask the question, but yet more unable to answer hers, and curious to hear what she would say.
"Oh, to be a Christian," said Fleda.
"But I have seen Christians," said Mr. Carleton, "who were no more ready to die than other people."
"Then they were make-believe Christians," said Fleda, decidedly.
"What makes you think so?" said her friend, carefully guarding his countenance from anything like a smile.
"Because," said Fleda, "grandpa was ready, and my father was ready, and my mother, too; and I know it was because they were Christians."
"Perhaps your kind of Christians are different from my kind," said Mr. Carleton, carrying on the conversation half in spite of himself. "What do you mean by a Christian, Elfie?"
"Why, what the Bible means," said Fleda, looking at him with innocent earnestness.