had to do, apparently, with Barney and with her grandfather and with Resurrection Rock, for evidently Barney's errand to the Rock was the "it" which was now of no use at all. Certainly Barney's visit to the Rock had not proved of much "use."
Her thought returned to an earlier paragraph of the letter. "It has frequently appeared," Huston Adley said, "that individuals on the other side have wished to communicate with persons on this but have been unable to on account of lack of facility." There seemed a certain rebuke to her in that; her father, after his death, had desired to speak to her but could not because she had not even sought for the necessary condition of receptivity; so her father had had to send her a message indirectly, through a stranger who was more receptive. The image given her in the letter was of her father's spirit standing by other spirits whose loved ones sought them; and her father had had to ask their leave to interrupt to send her a message.
But how could she have known that she should have made attempt to speak with him? Why, she had never, until a few days ago, thought of communication with those in heaven as really possible! Such an idea had not seriously entered her mind; when people, even those closest to you, were dead, they were gone from you forever, she had thought, until in some strange, vague eternity you went to join them—perhaps; Ethel had not been wholly convinced even of that.
She had been baptized in the Episcopal Church when she was an infant; she had gone to Sunday school, faithfully enough, and later to church; she had liked the services, and it seemed on the whole a good thing to do; but the literal beliefs of Christianity had never really become a part of her. They were beautiful, she
