"To fly up into that awful place up there. Shall we have to do that when we die?" "It is not an awful place, dear. God is there, you know." "But I am frightened. And if God is up there, I shall be frightened at him too. It is so dreadful! I used to think that God could see me when I was in London. But how he is to see me in this great place, with so many things about, cocks and larks, and all, I can't think. I'm so little! I'm hardly worth taking care of." "But you remember, Mattie, what Somebody says--that God takes care of every sparrow." "Yes, but that's the sparrows, and they're in the town, you know," said Mattie, with an access of her old fantastic perversity, flying for succor, as it always does, to false logic. Lucy saw that it was time to stop. The child's fear was gone for the present, or she could not have talked such nonsense. It was just as good, however, as the logic of most of those who worship the letter and call it the word. "Why don't you speak, Miss Burton?" asked Mattie at length, no doubt conscience-stricken by her silence. "Because you are talking nonsense now, Mattie." "I thought that was it. But why should that make you not speak? for I need the more to hear sense." "No, Mattie. Mr. Fuller says that when people begin to talk falsely, it is better to be quite silent, and let them say what they please, till the sound of their own nonsense makes them ashamed." "As it did me, Miss Burton, as soon as you wouldn't speak any more." "He says it does no good to contradict them then, for they are not only unworthy to hear the truth--that's not it--if they would hear it--but they are not fit to hear it. They are not in a mood to get any good from it; for they are holding the door open for the devil to come in, and truth can't get in at the same door with the devil." "Oh, how dreadful! To think of me talking like Syne!" said Mattie. "I won't do it again, Miss Burton. Do tell me what Somebody said about God and the sparrows. Didn't he say something about counting their feathers? I think I remember Mr. Spelt reading that to me one night." "He said something about counting your hairs, Mattie." "_Mine?_" "Well, he said it to all the people that would listen to him. I dare say there were some that could not believe it because they did not care to be told it." "That's me, Miss Burton. But I won't do it again. Well--what more?" "Only this, Mattie: that if God knows how many hairs you have got on your head--" "My big head," interrupted Mattie. "Well?" "Yes, on your big head--if God knows that, you can't think you're too small for him to look after you." "I will try not to be frightened at the big sky any more, dear Miss Burton; I will try." In a few minutes she was fast asleep again.