"And I love her still the best," said Iris, in a soft voice; "but, Apollo, I have something else to do." And then she added, lowering her tones, "You know, I can't be sorry about mother herself. I can only be glad about her." "Glad about mother! Glad that she is dead!" said the boy. "Oh, I don't think about that part," said Iris. "She is not dead--not really. She is only away up above the stars and the blue sky, and she will never have any more suffering, and she will always be as happy as happy can be, and sometime or other, Apollo, I think she will be able to come back; and, if she can, I am sure she will. Yes, I am quite sure she will." "If she comes back we shall see her," said Apollo; "but she can't come back, Iris. Dead people can't come back." "Oh, please, don't call her that," said Iris, with a note of great pain in her voice. "But Fortune says that mother is dead, just like anybody else, and in a few days she will be put into the ground. Oh, Iris! I am frightened when I think of it. Mother was so lovely, and to think of their putting her into the ground in a box just like--like we put the poor innocent and the other creatures, and if that is the case she can never come back--never, never, never!" The little boy buried his black head of curling hair on his sister's knee, and gave vent to a great burst of tears. "But it is not true, Apollo," said Iris. "I mean in one way it is not true--I can't explain it, but I know. Let us forget all the dark, dreadful part--let us think of her, the real mother, the mother that looked at us out of her beautiful eyes; she is not dead, she has only gone away, and she wants us all to be good, so that we may join her some day. She called me after the rainbow, and after the messenger of the gods; and you, Apollo, after the bravest and the most beautiful boy that was supposed ever to live; and Diana, too, was called after a great Greek goddess; and Orion after the most lovely star in all the world. Oh, surely we four little children ought to try to be great, and good, and brave, if we are ever to meet our mother again!" "Well, it is all very puzzling," said Apollo, "and I can't understand things the way you can, Iris, and I have an awful ache in my throat. I am hungry, and yet I am not hungry. I love strawberries as a rule, but I hate them to-day. If only father would come and talk to us it would not be quite so bad; but Fortune said we were not to go to him, that he was shut up in his study, and that he was very unhappy. She said that he felt it all dreadfully about mother." "Iris," said Diana's voice at that moment, "we are not surely to have any lessons to-day?" She had come to the door of the summer-house, and was looking in. "Lessons?" said Iris. She put up her hand to her forehead in a dazed manner.