He watched her in silence, pleased and curious to observe how beautiful a scene struck the childish eye of the little Londoner. The first thing she said, after three or four minutes' contemplation--a long time for such a child--was, 'Oh! I never saw anything so pretty!' then presently after, 'Oh! I wish little brother Felix was here!'
'This is a pleasant place to think about your little brother,' said Guy, kindly; and she looked up in his face, and exclaimed, 'Oh! do you know about Felix?'
'You shall tell me' said Guy. 'Here, sit on my knee, and rest after your scramble.'
'Mamma never lets me talk of Felix, because it makes her cry,' said Marianne; but I wish it sometimes.'
Her little heart was soon open. It appeared that Felix was the last who had died, the nearest in age to Marianne, and her favourite playfellow. She told of some of their sports in their London home, speaking of them with eagerness and fondness that showed what joys they had been, though to Guy they seemed but the very proof of dreariness and dinginess. She talked of walks to school, when Felix would tell what he would do when he was a man, and how he took care of her at the crossings, and how rude boys used to drive them, and how they would look in at the shop windows and settle what they would buy if they were rich. Then she talked of his being ill--ill so very long; how he sat in his little chair, and could not play, and then always lay in bed, and she liked to sit by him, there; but at last he died, and they carried him away in a great black coffin, and he would never come back again. But it was so dull now, there was no one to play with her.
Though the little girl did not cry, she looked very mournful, and Guy tried to comfort her, but she did not understand him. 'Going to heaven' only conveyed to her a notion of death and separation, and this phrase, together with a vague idea who had made her, and that she ought to be good, seemed to be the extent of the poor child's religious knowledge. She hardly ever had been at church and though she had read one or two Bible stories, it seemed to have been from their having been used as lessons at school. She had a dim notion that good people read the Bible, and there was one on the little table at home, with the shell-turkey-cock standing upon it, and mamma read it when Felix died; but it was a big book, and the shell-turkey-cock always stood upon it; in short, it seemed only connected with mamma's tears, and the loss of her brother.