And then
Audrey broke down entirely. "Mother, I can never forget, I can never
forgive myself, but I will try never to be so mean again, never.
I am going to begin to-day to do better. I really mean to."

"We all will, we will begin by trying to understand each other, shall we?
Try to be more patient, and to see how things seem to others. Don't you
think a good motto for us all would be 'others first.'"

"I don't think Faith needs that motto, mother," said Audrey wistfully,
which was a great admission for her, and the first step on the new road
she meant to tread.

"Oh yes, she does, dear. We all do, some more, some less."

"Well, I am one who needs it very much more," and Audrey smiled ruefully
as she raised herself. "Now I am going down to see what I can do to help.
I will begin by laying her breakfast-tray as nicely and temptingly as ever
I can," she thought, as she hurried away. She felt so lighthearted she
wanted to do something for everyone, to make all feel as happy as she did
herself. But alas, alas! when she got downstairs her happiness received a
check. Joan was ill.

In the kitchen Audrey found Faith seated by the kitchen fire with Joan
upon her lap. Joan drowsy and feverish, and fretful. Faith anxious and
pale.

"I believe she is ill," said Faith, looking up at her with eyes full of
alarm, "she has been so restless all night. I wonder what can be the
matter. I have been so careful about her food, and I don't see how she
can have got a cold."

Joan turned uneasily, and began to whimper, Mary came over and looked
anxiously at the flushed baby face. "She's feverish, Miss Faith, she's
got a cold somehow. She is so hot, and it seems to hurt her to move."

With a swift shock of fear Audrey remembered what had happened the
previous evening--the little thinly-clad body lying outside the
bed-clothes, exposed to the draught from the open window. She coloured
guiltily, but for a moment she hesitated to speak. It was so dreadful to
have to heap more blame upon herself--to have to make everyone think more
hardly of her, just when she had begun to try to make them think better.
But once again she conquered herself, and so took another step, and a long
one, along the new but stony road she had set out to tread.

Faith looked grave as she listened. She adored her baby sister, and she
found it hard not to blame Audrey. "I ought not to have gone away," she
began irritably, but stopped, as it struck