“How has Mr. Brown been since he got home?” may serve as index to the course of her meditations.

“How in the world came Dolce to undertake the rafting business?” asked Karl, when his sister’s inquiries had been amply satisfied.

“Why, poor little thing!” said Dora, laughing a little, “she thought she had found the way to heaven.  She noticed from the window how very blue the river was, and, as she says, ’goldy all over in spots:’  so she slipped out, and ran down there, forgetting for once that she is forbidden to do so.  Standing on the brink, she saw the reflection of the little white clouds floating overhead, and was suddenly possessed with an idea that this was heaven, or the entrance to it.  So, as she told me, she thought she would float out on the log till she got to the middle, and then ’slip off, and fall right into heaven.’”

“How absurd!” said Kitty, laughing.

“Not at all.  She would certainly have reached heaven if she had carried out the plan,” said Karl.

“Don’t, please,” murmured Dora, with a little shiver.  “Don’t talk of it.”

“That is like a little sister of mine; a little adopted sister, at least.  She was always talking of going to heaven, and planning to get there,” said the guest.

Dora looked at him with pity in her honest eyes, and hastened to prevent Kitty’s evident intention of questioning him further with regard to this “little sister.”

“It seems to be a natural instinct with children,” said she “to long for heaven.  Perhaps that is the reason they bring so much of heaven to earth.”

“I’m afraid mothers of large and troublesome families would say that earth would be better with less of heaven,” suggested Karl slyly; and the conversation suddenly veered to other topics.  But all through the evening, and even after he had gone to rest, the mind of Teddy Ginniss was haunted by the memory of the pretty child, so loved and mourned, and of whom this anecdote of the little heaven-seeker so forcibly reminded him.

“Whose child is this, I wonder?” thought he a dozen times:  but, in the hints he had solicited from Mr. Brown upon manners, none had been more urgent than that forbidding inquisition into other people’s affairs; and indeed Teddy’s natural tact and refinement would have prevented his erring in this respect.  So now he held his peace, and slept unsatisfied.

This may have been the reason of his rising unusually early,—­in fact, while the rosy clouds of dawn were yet in the sky,—­and quietly leaving the house with the purpose of a river-bath.  Strolling some distance down the bank, until the intervening trees shut off the house, he plunged in, and found himself much refreshed by a swim of ten minutes through waters gorgeous with the colors of the sunrise-sky; and, as he paused to notice them, Teddy muttered,—­

“The poor little sister!  She’d have done just the same if she’d been here.”