'Oh! it isn't _that_,' returned the little fellow eagerly. 'We a'n't going to be whipped any more, unless we're real naughty, and then not very hard; and ma is going to send Betty away, and we a'n't going to be scolded any more; and she's going to take us to walk and ride with her sometimes, as the other mothers do. Why,' cried the eager child, all glowing at the delightful prospect, 'Why, Charley, we're going to be happy now.' 'Oh, I don't believe we are,' sadly sighed the more experienced Charley, scratching his curls disconsolately, and looking at his brother in a maze of perplexity and doubt. 'I've thought we were going to be happy a great many times, but we a'n't been never, and I don't believe we ever will be. The first thing I remember was being lonesome, and I've been as lonesome as could be ever since. No, no; we shall never be happy. Ta'n't no use thinking about being happy,' and the forlorn child threw himself upon the grass in a hopeless and dejected manner. 'But they _do_ say, Harry,' he continued, looking up through the leaves at the blue vault above him, 'that there's a place up yonder somewhere where good people go when they die, and where _everybody_ is happy. I've thought, since I heard about it, that perhaps some people went there without dying. If they _do_, Harry, and I can only find out the way, I'd leave this mean old place, and go there straight, this very minute. I'd like to have you and pa come, Harry; but ma is always scolding or whipping us for something. I don't like ma, and I don't care whether she ever gets there or not. Come to think of it,' pursued Charley, as a new thought seemed to strike him, 'I had a good deal rather she wouldn't come; for if she _did_ find out the way, and come up there after a while, like as any way she'd bring a switch with her.' 'You shouldn't talk so about ma, Charley,' said his meek-eyed brother. 'She isn't cross _always_. She has been kind to me to-day, so kind,' said the little fellow, stemming with his fingers two great round drops that were slowly running down his cheeks, 'that it makes the tears come to think about it. I was with her a great long while, and she didn't scold or speak cross once. Why, only think, Charley,' he proceeded, opening his eyes, as if the fact about to be communicated could never be sufficiently wondered at, 'we were all alone together for ever so long, and she might have got angry and whipped me just as well as not, and pa would never know anything about it.'