here's no need. I know very
well. It would have been more wise-like to have kept your sisters at
home than to fret so unreasonably for them now they are away."

Effie made no answer.

"What's to happen to them more than to twenty others that have gone from
these parts? It's a sad thing, indeed, that your father's daughters
should need to go to service, considering all that is past. But it
can't be mended now. And one thing is certain: it's no disgrace."

"No, indeed," said Effie. "I don't look on it in that light; but--"

"Yes; I ken what you would say. It's ay Christie you're thinking about.
But she'll be none the worse for a little discipline. She would soon
have been an utter vexation, if she had been kept at home. You spoiled
your sister with your petting and coaxing, till there was no doing with
her. I'm sure I dinna see why she's to be pitied more than Annie."

Effie had no reply to make. If she was foolish and unreasonable in her
fears for Christie, her aunt's manner of pointing out her fault was not
likely to prove it to her. She did not wish to hear more. Perhaps she
was foolish, she thought. Good Mrs Nesbitt, who was not likely to be
unjust to Christie, and who was ready to sympathise with the elder
sister in what seemed almost like the breaking-up of the family, said
something of the same kind to her once, as they were walking together
from the Sabbath-school.

"My dear," she said, "you are wrong to vex yourself with such thoughts.
Your aunt is partly right. Christie will be none the worse for the
discipline she may have to undergo. There are some traits in her
character that haven a fairly shown themselves yet. She will grow firm
and patient and self-reliant, I do not doubt. I only hope she will grow
stronger in body too."

Effie sighed.

"She was never very strong."

"If she shouldna be well, she must come home; and, Effie, though I would
never say to an elder sister that she could be too patient and tender to
one of the little ones--and that one sometimes wilful and peevish, and
no' very strong--yet Christie may be none the worse, for a wee while,
no' to have you between her and all trouble. My dear, I know what you
would say. I know you have something like a mother's feeling for the
child. But even a mother canna bear every burden or drink every bitter
drop for her child. And it is as well she canna do it. If Christie's
battle with life and what it brings begins a year or