ems," Mr. McLean read,
"when there is the tiniest improvement in the health of an invalid one
loves." Is it laughable that such a note as this is appended to a recipe
for beef-tea? "It is surely not very wicked to pretend to Kitty that I
keep some of it for myself; she would not take it all if she knew I
dined on the beef it was made from." Other entries showed too plainly
that Miss Ailie stinted herself of food to provide delicacies for Miss
Kitty. No doubt her expenses were alarming her when she wrote this: "An
interesting article in the _Mentor_ says that nearly all of us eat and
drink too much. Were we to mortify our stomachs we should be healthier
animals and more capable of sustained thought. The word animal in this
connection is coarse, but the article is most impressive, and a
crushing reply to Dr. McQueen's assertion that the editor drinks. In the
school-room I have frequently found my thoughts of late wandering from
classwork, and I hastily ascribed it to sitting up during the night with
Kitty or to my habit of listening lest she should be calling for me.
Probably I had over-eaten, and I must mortify the stomach. A glass of
hot water with half a spoonful of sugar in it is highly recommended as a
light supper."

"How long ago it may seem since yesterday!" Do you need to be told on
what dark day Miss Ailie discovered that? "I used to pray that I should
be taken first, but I was both impious and selfish, for how could
fragile Kitty have fought on alone?"

In time happiness again returned to Miss Ailie; of all our friends it is
the one most reluctant to leave us on this side of the grave. It came at
first disguised, in the form of duties, old and new; and stealthily,
when Miss Ailie was not looking, it mixed with the small worries and
joys that had been events while Miss Kitty lived, and these it converted
once more into events, where Miss Ailie found it lurking, and at first
she would not take it back to her heart, but it crept in without her
knowing. And still there were I---- M----'s letters. "They are all I
have to look forward to," she wrote in self-defence. "I shall never
write to I---- M---- again," was another entry, but Mr. McLean found on
the same page, "I have written to I---- M----, but do not intend
posting it," and beneath that was, "God forgive me, I have posted it."

The troubles with arithmetic were becoming more terrible. "I am never
_really_ sure about the decimals," she wrote.

A Professor