very kind and patient with me."

There was a long pause before Christie could go on again, and she rather
hurried over the rest of her tale.

"After he died we left the farm. I came here with Annie. I was very
home-sick at first. Nothing but that I couldn't bear to go home and
depend on Aunt Elsie kept me here. I thought sometimes I must die of
that heart-sickness, and besides, I made myself unhappy with wrong
thoughts. In the spring Annie went away. I couldn't go, because Mrs
Lee and the children were ill; you mind I told you about that. I was
unhappy at first; but afterwards I was not, and I never was again--in
the same way, I mean."

The work she had been busy upon dropped from her hands, and over her
face stole the look of peace and sweet content that Gertrude had so
often wondered at. For a little while she sat quite still, forgetting,
it seemed, that she was not alone; and then Gertrude said, softly.

"Well, and what then?"

Christie drew a long breath as she took up her work.

"Well, after that, something happened. I'm afraid I can't tell it so
that you will understand. It seems very little just to speak about, but
it made a great difference to me. I went to the kirk one day when a
stranger preached. I can't just mind the words he said, at least I
can't repeat them. And even if I could I dare say they would seem just
common words to you. I had heard them all before, many a time, but that
day my heart was opened to understand them, I think. The way that God
saves sinners seemed so plain and wise and sure, that I wondered I had
never seen it so before. I seemed to see it in a new way, and that it
is all His work from beginning to end. He pardons and justifies and
sanctifies, and keeps us through all; and it seemed so natural and easy
to trust myself in His hands. I have never been very unhappy since that
day, and I don't believe I shall ever be very unhappy again."

There was a long silence. Miss Gertrude was repeating to herself, over
and over again:

"His work, from beginning to end! He pardons, justifies, sanctifies,
and saves at last."

So many new and strange thoughts crowded into the young girl's mind that
for the moment she forgot Christie and her interest in all she had been
saying. Word by word she repeated to herself, "pardons," "justifies,"
"sanctifies," "saves."

"I cannot understand it." And in a little while, bewildered with her
own speculations, she turned from the s