r's death
was a year of great unhappiness to Christie.

After that, there was a great change in the family life. Losses in
business, and other circumstances, induced Mr Redfern to give up his
home and to remove with his family to Canada. Though this decision was
made contrary to the advice of his sister, she would not forsake him and
his children: so she had come with them to the backwoods.

A new and changed life opened to them here, and all the changes that
came to them were not for the better. Mr Redfern knew nothing about
practical farming; and so, though he had means to purchase a sufficient
quantity of good land, it was not surprising to his neighbours that his
first attempt should be unsuccessful. His children were of the wrong
sort, too, his neighbours said; for only one of the eight was a lad, and
he was only six when he came to his new home. No pair of hands could
gather, from ever so good a farm, food enough to fill so many mouths;
and more than one of the kind people who took the affairs of the
new-comers into their especial consideration, shook their heads gravely
over their prospects. And for a time they were badly off.

Soon after their arrival in their new home, Aunt Elsie was seized with
an illness which lingered long, and left her a cripple when it went
away; and her temper was not of the kind which suffering and
helplessness are said sometimes to improve. It was a trying time to
all.

But winter passed over. Spring came, and with it came a measure of
health to Aunt Elsie. She could move about on a crutch and give
directions in the house, and do many things besides, which a less
energetic person would never have attempted. The elder girls, Effie,
Sarah, and Annie, proved themselves of the right sort, so far as energy,
and strength, and a right good-will were concerned, and worked in the
fields with their father as though they had been accustomed to it all
their lives. So, when two or three years had passed away, the glances
which the neighbours sent into the future of the Redferns revealed by no
means so dreary a prospect as formerly.

A change for the better had come over Christie, too. She would never be
as hopeful or as healthy as her sisters, her aunt said; but in health
and hopefulness, and in temper too, there was a great change for the
better in Christie at the end of the first three years of her Canadian
life. But Christie was far from being what she ought to be in respect
to