_best_!" she said, presently.

"Don't you?" said Christie, smiling a little. "Well, I am not good at
explaining things. I don't mean what is pleasantest just now, but what
is really best for us all, now, and--and afterwards."

"Do you mean to say that you are better off here as Claude's nurse than
you would be if you were to live at home, or go to school, as you were
wishing you could the other day? If you had your choice, is that what
you would choose?"

"Oh, I don't speak about a choice. I am content not to choose; at
least, almost always I am content. I know it is best for me to be here,
or I shouldn't be here."

"But, do you know, that seems to me quite absurd. Why, according to
that, everybody is just in the right place. No one ought to have any
wish to change, even to be better. All the world is just as it ought to
be."

"I can't tell what is best for all the world and everybody," said
Christie, gravely. "I was only speaking of myself and Effie, and the
rest at home."

"But I suppose what is true for you is true for other people also--for
me, for instance! Don't you think I have anything left to wish for? Do
you think I am in the very best place I could be in for my happiness now
and always?"

"I don't know," said Christie, looking wistfully into her face. "I hope
so. I cannot tell."

"But what makes you so sure in your own case, then, if you can't tell in
mine? I think few people would hesitate as to which of us is most
happily placed. What makes you so sure of yourself?"

Christie did not reply for a moment. She was slowly turning over the
leaves of her Bible. When at last she stopped, it was to read softly:

"`For a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth.'"

And, farther on:

"`Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have
storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much are ye better than
the fowls?'

"`Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and
yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these.'

"`If then God so clothe the grass, which to-day is, and to-morrow is
cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little
faith!'"

Gertrude had half expected some such answers. She did not speak, but
watched her as she continued to turn the leaves. She read again:

"`And we know that all things work together for good to them that love