Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/209

Rh this. We just have to, you see. Perhaps we say things that would seem very funny to religious people. I don't think we're religious—but—but we do like it."

"Do you?" said John Holt. "Perhaps I should too. You shall tell me some stories about it—and you shall put her there. If I could feel as if she was somewhere!"

"Oh," said Meg, "she must be somewhere, you know! She couldn't go out, John Holt."

He cast his broad glance all round, and caught his breath as if remembering.

"Lord, Lord!" he said. "No! She couldn't go out!"

Meg knew afterwards why he said this with such force. "She" had been a creature who was so full of life and of the joy of living. She had been gay, and full of laughter and humour. She had had a wonderful, vivid mind, which found colour and feeling and story in the commonest things. She had been so clever and so witty, and such a bright and warm thing in her house. When she had gone away from earth so suddenly people had said with wonder, "But it seemed as if she could not die!" But she had died, and her child had died too, scarcely an hour after it was born, and John Holt had been left stunned and aghast, and almost stricken into gloomy