Many questions they asked about poor Tommy Baines, and where he had gone to, which the mother only answered after the simple manner of Scripture--he "was not, for God took him." But when they saw Mary Baines go crying down the field-path, Muriel asked "why she cried?
how could she cry, when it was God who had taken little Tommy ?" Afterwards she tried to learn of me privately, what sort of place it was he had gone to, and how he went; whether he had carried with him all his clothes, and especially the great bunch of woodbine she sent to him yesterday; and above all, whether he had gone by himself, or if some of the "angels," which held so large a place in Muriel's thoughts, and of which she was ever talking, had come to fetch him and take care of him.

She hoped--indeed, she felt sure--they had.

She wished she had met them, or heard them about in the house.
And seeing how the child's mind was running on the subject, I thought it best to explain to her as simply as I could, the solemn putting off of life and putting on of immortality.

I wished that my darling, who could never visibly behold death, should understand it as no image of terror, but only as a calm sleep and a joyful waking in another country, the glories of which eye had not seen nor ear heard.
"Eye has not seen!" repeated Muriel, thoughtfully; "can people SEE there, Uncle Phineas ?" "Yes, my child.

There is no darkness at all." She paused a minute, and said earnestly, "I want to go--I very much want to go.