uld be such a burden to
their little sister; and they sometimes sadly added to her discontent by
making light of her troubles, and ascribing to indolence and peevishness
the complaints which, too often, fell from her lips.

There had not, during all the summer, been a more uncomfortable day than
the one whose close found Christie sitting so disconsolately under the
birch-tree by the brook. It had begun badly, as too many of those days
did. In looking for something in the garret, Christie had found a book
that had been missing for a long time. It was one of her favourites.
She had read it often before, but not recently; and in those days new
books were rare, and old books proportionably precious.

Sitting down on the floor, amid the scattered contents of the chest she
had been rummaging, she forgot, in the charm of "The Family Tryst," that
the dough of her batch of bread was fast approaching that stage of
lightness that needed her attention, and that her oven was by no means
in a proper state to receive it when that point should be reached. Page
after page she turned with a vague feeling that each should be the last,
till even this half-consciousness of wrong-doing was lost in the intense
enjoyment of the tale; and then--the charm was broken.

Aunt Elsie's sharp, quick tones, coming suddenly upon her, must have
startled the nervous child with a shock of pain quite apart from any
thought of the consequences of her fault; and it was with hands that
trembled violently that the book was hidden and the scattered contents
of the chest were gathered together again. Then she thought of her
bread; and her heart failed within her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said to herself; but no such word was spoken to
her aunt. Indeed, to her she said nothing; and it was not sorrow for
her fault, but sullenness or indifference, or something that might
easily be mistaken for these, that her aunt saw on her face as she came
down-stairs. It was very provoking. The bread was ready for the oven,
but the oven was by no means ready for the bread. And now for the next
three days, at least, the children and the hungry harvest-people must
content themselves with sour bread, in consequence of Christie's
carelessness. It was Christie's wilful disobedience, her aunt declared;
and, really, the sullen, unrepentant look on the girl's face was almost
enough to excuse her aunt's bitter words and the sudden blow that fell
on her averted cheek. A blow