'Oh, I could find you nowhere, Theo. I asked everybody, even father. Then I knewed you must have gone to see mother, and so I comed too.' Queenie, armed as usual with a couple of dolls, proceeded to seat herself and them on the other side of the green mound. 'Tell me about mother an' me, Theo, when I was a very little girl, will you?' she soberly begged, when she had established herself and her infants to her satisfaction. In this little one there was an utter lack of dread of death. Nobody had filled her childish mind with vague fears of the unknown life beyond. Her simple faith was that unlimited trustful belief that our Lord alluded to when He said, 'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.' The mother whom Queenie only knew by hearsay had gone home first--gone to Paradise beyond the blue skies. Theo said so. This dear mother would be waiting, with wistful welcomes, for each one of her dear ones when they, too, went to that other far-off home. Theo said so. Queenie, therefore, came, with happy, childish trust, to her mother's quiet resting-place much as she would have trotted into that mother's room, had God not called His meek servant away out of her earthly home. 'I don't think I could tell you stories to-day, dear.' Theo rose slowly from the grass, and looked down upon the fair little face under its straw hat. 'I am too troubled.' 'Is it the horrid figures, Theo?' Queenie asked, half-sympathetically, half-absently, her attention being attracted by a bold thrush hopping across the graves. 'No, it's worse than figures; it's the boys,' mournfully rejoined Theo. 'The boys are going shrimping this evening, with Ned,' said Queenie importantly. 'I wish you and I was boys, Theo!' the little one plaintively added. Queenie was beginning to discover the fact that dolls were not, perhaps, the highest joys of life. Going out shrimping with Ned! Theo started. Then things were hopeless indeed. There would be no evening preparation. Perhaps even Geoff had changed his mind, and would refuse to say he was sorry. 'I must take you home now, at once, deary. Come! I have to go and see old Goody Dempster before tea. Say good-bye, and come.' Queenie's fresh little mouth was pressed against the grey headstone, and she softly whispered, 'Good-bye, mother darlin'!' Theo stooped and did the same. The touching little ceremony was never omitted by either. Then hand in hand they soberly left the quiet resting-place, the missel-thrush peering out of its bold eye at their retreating figures. CHAPTER IX COMING EVENTS 'May I come in, Goody?'