ng with folded hands,
thinking thoughts that were unprofitable always, and sometimes wrong.
Fits of silence alternated with sudden and violent bursts of weeping,
which her sisters could neither soothe nor understand. Indeed, she did
not understand them herself. She struggled with them, ashamed of her
folly and weakness; but she grew no better, but rather worse.

She might well rejoice when, at the end of a fortnight, Effie came home.
The wise and loving elder sister was not long in discovering that the
peevishness and listlessness of her young sister sprang from a cause
beyond her control. She was ill from over-exertion, and nervous from
over-excitement and grief. Nothing could be worse for her than this
confinement to Aunt Elsie's sick-room, added to the querulousness of
Aunt Elsie herself.

"You should let Christie help with the milking, as she used to do," she
said to Sarah. "It would be far better for her than sitting so much in
Aunt Elsie's room. She seems ill and out of sorts."

"Yes, she's out of sorts," said Sarah, with less of sympathy in her tone
than Effie had shown. "There's no telling what to do with her
sometimes. She can scarcely bear a word, but bursts out crying if the
least thing is said to her. I dare say she is not very well, poor
child!"

"She seems far from well, indeed," said Effie, gravely. "And I'm sure
you, or I either, would find our spirits sink if we were to spend day
after day in Aunt Elsie's room. You don't know what it is till you try
it."

Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

"I dare say we should. But Christie doesna seem to mind much what Aunt
Elsie says. I'm sure I thought she liked better to be there than to be
working hard in the kitchen or dairy."

"She may like it better, but it's no' so good for her, for all that.
You should send her out, and try and cheer her up, poor lassie! She's
no' so strong as the rest of us; and she suffers much from the shock."

That night, when the time for bringing home the cows came, Effie took
her sun-bonnet from the nail, saying carelessly:

"I'm going to the pasture. Are you coming, Christie?"

"For the cows?" said Christie, tartly. "The bairns go for them."

"Oh, but I'm going for the pleasure of the walk. We'll go through the
wheat, and down by the brook. Come."

Christie would far rather have stayed quietly at home, but she did not
like to refuse Effie; and so she went, and was better for it. At first
Effie spoke of va