"Yes, they can't go to heaven. Now the boy had had a sister, who died one year before him. He had loved her a lot, and when he died he began to hunt for his sister right away. 'Who is your sister?' he was asked."
"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----"
"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."
"That won't do," cried the philosophical contingency, "whoever is dead remains dead."
"Don't interrupt him. Of course it's only a story!"
Walter continued: "He returned to the earth and learned French. Then he appeared at the gate again and said, 'Oui, Monsieur!' but it did no good; he was not admitted."
"I should think not; he ought to have said: 'j'aime, tu aimes.'"
"I don't know anything about that," Walter replied.
"Then he went to the earth again and learned his lessons till he could say them backwards. He did this for the keeper of the gate; but all this did no good; he was not allowed to go in."
"Of course not," cried one of the wise ones, "to get to heaven you must be confirmed. Had he been confirmed?"
"No. That's the reason it was so difficult. Then he tried something else. He said that he was engaged to his sister."
"Yes, like Betty--and that he loved her and wanted to marry her. But it was all of no use; they wouldn't let him into heaven.