felicity of the world He had created--not beings to be prayed to or
solicited for favors, but just gentle, glorious, sympathetic, invisible
friends. She was very much interested in Christ; He was certainly a part
of God, too--but she could not understand about His dying to save the
world, since the God she heard of in the church was still forever
punishing and torturing human beings, or only extending mercy after His
vanity had been flattered by offerings and sacrifices.

"I expect," she said to herself, coming home one Sunday after one of Mr.
Miller's lengthy discourses upon God's vengeance, "when I am older and
able really to understand what is written in the Bible I shall find it
isn't that a bit, and it is either Mr. Miller can't see straight or he
has put the stops all in the wrong places and changed the sense. In any
case I shall not trouble now--the God who kept me from falling through
the hole in the loft yesterday by that ray of sunlight to show the
cracked board, is the one I am fond of."

It was the simple and logical view of a case which always appealed to
her.

"Halcyone" her parents had called her well--their bond of love--their
tangible proof of halcyon days. And always when Halcyone read her
"Heroes" she felt it was her beautiful father and mother who were the
real Halcyone and Ceyx, and she longed to see the blue summer sea and
the pleasant isles of Greece that she might find their floating nest and
see them sail away happily for ever over those gentle southern waves.