The possibility that he might be right in his creed simply never presented itself to her.
Helen's face had relaxed into a happy smile; again the day was fair and the wind sweet.

The garden below her was fragrant with growing things and the smell of damp earth; and while she sat, drinking in its sweetness, a sudden burst of children's voices reached her ear, and Ellen and the two little boys came around the corner of the house, and settled down under the window.

A group of lilacs, with feathery purple blossoms, made a deep, cool shade, where the children sat; and near them was an old grindstone, streaked with rust, and worn by many summers of sharpening scythes; a tin dipper hung on the wooden frame, nearly full of last night's rain, and with some lilac stars floating in the water.
This was evidently a favorite playground with the children, for under the frame of the grindstone were some corn-cob houses, and a little row of broken bits of china, which their simple imagination transformed into "dishes." But to-day the corn-cob houses and the dishes were untouched.
"Now, children," Ellen said, "you sit right down, and I'll hear your catechism." "Who'll hear yours ?" Bobby asked discontentedly.

"When we play school, you're always teacher, and it's no fun." "This isn't playing school," Ellen answered, skillfully evading the first question.

"Don't you know it's wicked to play on the Sabbath?
Now sit right down." There was a good deal of her mother's sharpness in the way she said this, and plucked Bobby by the strings of his pinafore, until he took an uncomfortable seat upon an inverted flower-pot.
Ellen opened a little yellow-covered book, and began.
"Now answer, Jim! How many kinds of sin are there ?" "Two," responded little Jim.
"What are these two kinds, Bob ?" "Original and actual," Bob answered.
"What is original sin ?" asked Ellen, raising one little forefinger to keep Bobby quiet.