thoughts began to turn homeward again. But not so anxiously as before.
The pain of parting from the children would be harder now. And during
these days she began to feel a strange yearning tenderness for the poor
young mother, scarcely less helpless and in need of care than they. It
had come to be quite the regular thing now for Mrs Greenly to take an
hour's rest in the attic-nursery when the children had fallen asleep,
while Christie took her place in Mrs Lee's room.

New and wonderful were the glimpses which those twilight hours gave to
Christie. She found that Mrs Lee, sitting in her drawing-room, or even
in the nursery, giving directions about the care of the children, was a
very different person from Mrs Lee lying in bed feverish or exhausted,
looking back over the days of her childhood, or forward to a future that
was anything but hopeful to her disenchanted eyes. Naturally reserved,
the lady had made but few acquaintances in the city, and had not one
intimate friend; and now, when weak and weary and desponding, it was a
relief to her to speak to some one of the times and places and events
over which memory had brooded in silence for so many years. She never
dreamed what glimpses of her heart she was giving to her little nurse.
She only saw the sympathy expressed by Christie's grave face or eager
gesture; and she talked to her, sometimes regretfully enough, about her
mother and her brothers and her childish days. Yet, sad as those
memories were, they were scarcely so sad as the thoughts she sent out
into the future. She did not often speak her fears; but her silence and
her frequent sighs were to Christie more eloquent than words.

Christie rarely spoke at such times as these--never, except when a
question was asked; and then her reply was generally prefaced with, "I
have heard my father say," or, "Effie once told me," or, "I heard John
Nesbitt saying." Ignorant as she knew herself to be on the most
important of all subjects, she was yet far wiser than her mistress.
Some of Christie's simple remarks and suggestions made an impression on
her heart that wiser and more direct teachings might have failed to
make.

As for Christie, in her sympathy for Mrs Lee's troubles, she almost
forgot her own. In striving to relieve her from all anxiety about the
children, she was ready to forget even her own weariness; and in the
knowledge that she was doing some good to them all, she ceased to regret
that Annie had go