Miss Cherry trembled a little, having some fear of false doctrine before her eyes. ‘Everybody, I hope, who loves God. There are bad people, Cara; but we don’t know them, you and I.’ ‘Who love God? but I never think of God, Aunt Cherry. At least, I do now; I wonder. But if they did not do that, would they still go to heaven all the same?’ ‘God loves us, dear,’ said Cherry, with the tears in her soft eyes. ‘Fathers and mothers love their children, whether their children love them or not. That is all we know.’ ‘Whatever they do? if they even laugh, and go wrong? Yes,’ said Cara, very thoughtfully, ‘I suppose papa would not send me away, out into the dark, if I did ever so wrong.’ ‘I am sure he would not; but you must not think of such things, dear; they are too difficult for you. When you are older, you will understand better,’ Cherry said, faltering, and with something in her heart which contradicted her; for did not the child ‘understand’ better than she? Then Cara started another difficulty, quite as appalling; facing it with innocent confidence, yet wonder: ‘What sort of a place,’ she asked, softly, looking up with her blue eyes full of serious faith and awe, ‘is heaven?’ ‘Oh, my dear,’ said Miss Cherry, ‘you ask me what I would give all I have in the world to know! There are so many whom I love there.’ ‘But what do you _think_? Often when one doesn’t know, one has an _idea_. I don’t know Italy or India; but I imagine something. Aunt Cherry, tell me what you think.’ ‘Oh, Cara, my darling, I don’t know what it is _like_! I know there is no trouble or pain in it; and that God is not so far off as here. No, He is not far off here; but we can’t see Him; and we are such poor dull creatures. And I _think_, Cara, I _think_ that our Lord must be always about there. That people may go and stand on the roadside and see Him pass, and talk to Him, and be satisfied about everything.’ ‘How--be satisfied about everything?’ ‘Oh, child! _I_ should not want anything more. He sees both sides, my darling, both here and there, and understands. I am sure they must be able to speak to Him, and go to Him, whenever they will----’ This thought brought great tears, a suffusion of utter wistfulness yet heart-content, to Cherry’s eyes. Little Cara did not know very well what was meant by such words. She did not understand this conception of the great Creator as a better taught child might have done. But she said to herself, all secretly: ‘If there is One like _that_, whether it is in heaven or earth, I might tell Him, and it would be no harm.’ While Miss Cherry dried her eyes, her heart lightened by that overflowing. Perhaps, though they had not seen Him, He had passed that way, and heard the babble--what was it more?--between the woman and the child. CHAPTER IX. THE HILL.