"Have you then any religion?" asked the priest. "Because it has been intimated to me that you are in search of one, and know not where it is to be found. Is your mother then happier than you?" Frederica looked at him in amazement and anger, yet other feelings also were in her heart. "Mama is good," said she. "One does not need to be very wise, or to have fine words to offer, in order to be a Christian." "And you? are you a Christian, dear?" "I am not good," said Frederica humbly; "but I wish to be, and God will teach me, and mama also." "And how long will it take you to learn? a year? two years? And the chances are your mother will not live many months. Will it be well with her, do you think, when she shall go away into another world alone?" Frederica turned upon him a white face and wide-open eyes of horror. "Yes," said Selina's soft voice behind them, "it will be well. God is good, and Christ has died." Frederica uttered a glad cry, and clasped her sister in her arms. "Yes," said the priest, "God is good, and Christ has died. This is our only hope. But then all these years have you been thinking of this? You have been forgetting God, and even now you are trusting to your own wisdom to find Him. You are refusing counsel. You are walking in your own ways. Oh! poor ignorant erring children, it is because I love you so much, you and your mother, that I dare to make you unhappy by telling you the truth. I would gladly lead you in the right way." "Is mama so very ill?" said Frederica, forgetting everything else, in the misery that his words had suggested. "Do you not see yourselves that she is very ill? Dear children, death is a happy change to those who have the care and blessing of the Church. Death is nothing of which a Christian need be afraid." He spoke gently and tenderly, and laid his hand softly on the blind girl's head; but his eyes were hard and angry, and Frederica shrank from him with a repugnance which she did not try to conceal. "I would so gladly help you," said he again. "It is your happiness I seek, and the happiness of your dear mistaken mother." And in a little he added, "God bless you with humble minds." And then went silently away. And he left two very unhappy girls behind him. Could it be that their mother was going to die; and that she had cause to be afraid? "I never wish to see him again," said Frederica. "He shall never see mama again, if I can prevent it." But her anger went away with the departure of the priest, and now she was very miserable. "But, Fred, if it is true that we are all wrong, and that mama is going to die before--" Selina shuddered. "Selina! God is good, and Christ has died; you said it yourself." "Yes, God is good. He will teach us." "And He will take care of mama and all of us. And if mama does not go to heaven, I am sure I do not care to go there either," said Frederica, with a great bout of weeping.