o feel quite contented when she found herself alone. She was
in danger sometimes of falling into her old despondent feelings, but she
knew her weakness and watched against it, and made the most of the few
pleasures that fell to her lot.

"I won't begin and count the weeks yet," she said to herself. "That
would make the time seem longer. I will just wait, and be cheerful and
hopeful, as Effie bade me; and surely I have good cause to be cheerful.
I only wish I were a little stronger."

The winter seemed to take its leave slowly and unwillingly that year,
but it went at last. First the brown sides of the mountains showed
themselves, and then the fields grew bare, and here and there the water
began to make channels for itself down the slopes to the low places. By
and by the gravel walks and borders of the garden appeared; and as the
days grew long, the sunshine came pleasantly in through the bare boughs
of the trees to chequer the nursery floor.

The month of March seemed long; there were many bleak days in it. But
it passed, as did the first weeks of April. The fields grew warm and
green, and over the numberless budding things in the fields and garden
Christie watched with intense delight. The air became mild and balmy,
and then they could pass hour after hour in the garden, as they used to
do when she first came.

But Christie did not grow strong, though often during the last part of
the winter she had said to herself that all she needed to make her well
again was the fresh air and the spring sunshine. Her old lameness came,
or else she suffered from a new cause, more hopeless and harder to bear.
The time came when a journey to or from the upper nursery was a
wearisome matter to her. Wakeful nights and languid days became
frequent. It was with great difficulty sometimes that she dragged
herself through the duties of the weary day.

She did not complain of illness. She hoped every day that the worst was
over, and that she would be as well as usual again. Mrs Seaton
lightened her duties in various ways. Martha, the nurse in the lower
nursery, was very kind and considerate too, and did what she could to
save her from exertion. But no one thought her ill; she did not think
herself so. It was the pain in her knee, making her nights so sleepless
and wearisome, that was taking her strength away, she thought; if she
could only rest as she used to do, she would soon be well. So for a few
days she struggled on