"They look so, don't they?" said Willie. "They're in the sky, where I always used to think heaven was."
"I should like to go to heaven," said Gerty.
"Perhaps, if you're good, you will go some time."
"Then I can't ever go," said Gerty, mournfully.
"Why not?" asked Willie; "an't you good."
"What a queer child!" said Willie. "What makes you think yourself so very bad?"
"Oh, I _am_," said Gerty, in a very sad tone; "I'm the worst of all. I'm the worst child in the world."
"Everybody. Nan Grant says so, and she says everybody thinks so; I know it too, myself."
"Is Nan Grant the cross old woman you used to live with?"
"Oh, my mother's been telling me about her. Well, I want to know if she didn't send you to school, or teach you anything?"
"Why, what lots you've got to learn! What did you used to do when you lived there?"
"Never did anything; don't know anything; my gracious!"
"Yes, I do know one thing," said Gerty. "I know how to toast bread;--your mother taught me;--she let me toast some by the fire."
As she spoke, she thought of her own neglected toast, and turned towards the stove; but she was too late--the toast was made, the supper ready, and True was just putting it on the table.
"Oh, Uncle True," said she, "I meant to get the tea."
"I know it," said True, "but it's no matter; you can get it to-morrow."
The tears came into Gerty's eyes; she looked very much disappointed, but said nothing. They all sat down to supper. Willie put the Samuel in the middle of the table for a centre ornament, and told so many funny stories that Gerty laughed heartily, forgot that she did not make the toast herself, forgot her sadness, and showed herself, for once, a merry child. After tea, she sat beside Willie on the great settle, and, in her peculiar way, gave him a description of her life at Nan Grant's, winding up with a touching account of the death of her kitten.
The two children were in a fair way to become as good friends as True could possibly wish. True sat on the opposite side of the stove, smoking his pipe; his elbows on his knees, his eyes bent on the children, and his ears drinking in all their conversation. He laughed when they laughed; took long whiffs at his pipe when they talked quietly; ceased smoking entirely, letting his pipe rest on his knee, and secretly wiping away a tear, when Gerty recounted her childish griefs. He often heard it afterwards, but never _without crying_.