"I think it must be in the chest. While I'm about it I may as well go and see. If you have outgrown it, it could be made over into a dress; it's nice, fine merino, a little thicker than I'd buy for a dress, but your father would have just that piece. I'll get a candle and go up-stairs--I wouldn't trust a glass lamp with this horrid burning-fluid in _my_ storeroom. Hanny, be sure you don't get up and touch it," as if there was the slightest possibility. "I'll be down again in five minutes." That was a shrewd motherly excuse not to leave the little girl alone in the dark, though she was never afraid. She lay there very still, with a feeling of safety since her mother was up-stairs. Of course she was old enough to know a great many things and to have ideas on religious subjects. But I think the Underhills were more intelligent than intellectual, and people were still living rather simple lives, not yet impregnated with ideas. They had not had the old Puritan training, and the ferment of science and philosophy and transcendentalism had not invaded the country places. To-night in the city there were wise heads proving and disproving the times and half times, and days and signs, but they really had no interest for Mrs. Underhill, who was training her family the best she knew how, making good men and women. And the little girl's ideas were extremely vague. She thought her soul was that part of her heart that beat. When it ceased beating you died and the body was left behind; so of course that was what went to heaven. And when she had been naughty or when she had left something undone and was hurrying with all her might to do it, this thing beat and throbbed. If she wanted something very much and was almost tempted to take it, the feeling came up in her throat, and she knew that was conscience. She was trying now to recall and repent of her sins, and oh, she did so wish her father was here. Would he be back before the end came, and take them all in his strong arms? and they would run--Oh, no! they were to be caught up in the clouds. But she would be safe where he was. Years afterward, she was to understand how human and finite love foreshadowed the eternal. But then she could only believe, and her faith in her human father was the rock of her salvation. And when her mother came down she _had_ fallen asleep, but she thought it would be just as well to leave the lamp burning until Margaret's return. She would look in now and then to see that it didn't explode. Burning-fluid was considered rather dangerous stuff. Hanny was so tired that she slept soundly. It was almost midnight when the folks came home, and Mrs. Underhill begged Margaret to go to bed quietly and not disturb her. And it was all light with the sun rising in the eastern sky and shining in one window when she opened her eyes. Margaret stood before the glass plaiting her pretty, long hair.