the latter item even then, as her aunt often told her; and she had
good cause to be of her aunt's opinion many times before the summer was
over.

It was, for several reasons, a time of trial to the child. Her eldest
sister Effie, whom she loved best of all, was away from home as
school-mistress in a neighbouring township, only returning home for the
Sunday, and not always able to do that. Her absence made the constant
assistance of Sarah and Annie indispensable to their father. So the
work of the household, and the care of the dairy during the greater part
of the summer, fell to Christie, under the superintendence of Aunt
Elsie; and a great deal more strength and patience was needed than
Christie had at her disposal. She would gladly have changed with her
sisters for their harder places in the fields; but the cold of the
spring and autumn mornings chilled her, and the heat of summer exhausted
her, and there was no alternative but the work of the house. This would
have been wearisome enough under any circumstances to a child not very
strong; and it was sometimes rendered more than wearisome by the
needless chidings of her aunt.

Not that her aunt meant to be unkind, or that her chidings were always
undeserved or her complaints causeless. Her mother could not have been
more careful than her aunt was, that Christie should not put her hand to
work beyond her strength. But probably her mother would have felt that
a child might become weary, even to disgust, of a never-ending,
never-changing routine of trifling duties, that brought no pleasant
excitement in their train, that could scarcely be named or numbered when
the day was done, yet whose performance required time and strength and
patience beyond her power to give. But if her aunt ever thought about
this, she never told her thoughts to Christie; and to the child the
summer days often passed wearily enough. It is to be doubted whether
the elder sisters, after a long harvest-day, went to bed more tired and
depressed than did Christie, who, in their opinion, had been having an
easy time. Not but that Annie and Sarah understood in some measure the
troubles that might fall to Christie's lot under the immediate
superintendence of Aunt Elsie; and they were sometimes ready enough to
congratulate themselves on their own more free life out of doors. But,
strong and healthy as they were, they could not understand how the work
which would have seemed like play to them co