aid at length, "my heart is bleeding for you. Tell
me, Winnie, how did all this happen?" and with Aunt Judith's arms round
her, and a sense of peaceful rest stealing over her weary frame, the
sick girl told all that there was to tell, simply, truthfully, with no
attempt to screen herself from blame.

"I was wrong to speak as I did," she finished sadly, "but I had
provocation. O Aunt Judith, I cannot express the awful feeling of
hatred I bear towards Ada, when I think that if it had not been for her
I should be running about in the sunshine now."

"Hush, Winnie! do not say that," replied Miss Latimer softly; "her
heart will be heavy enough now, I fancy, and--" But here Winnie broke
in:--

"No, Aunt Judith. I don't believe she feels the least little particle
of sorrow. She ran away when I fell, and never even came to ask for me
after the accident. No one knows she had anything to do with my fall
except my own family, and they decided to leave her alone and make no
remark. Mamma was awfully good. She said she had formed a wrong
estimate of Ada's character, and told me I had been right."

There was a few minutes' pause, then Winnie continued: "I know, Aunt
Judith, you think I am very wicked for hating Ada so bitterly; but, oh!
look what she has done to me. My life is spoilt" (with the old wail of
an infinite pain); "I shall never be able to walk again."

Miss Latimer's eyes grew misty, and Winnie continued:---

"You are good and true, Aunt Judith. You sit there looking at me with
such a kind, loving face, and don't say like the others, 'Wait a little
longer, Winnie; some day you will be all right again.'" Then repeating
the words, with a weary depth of woe in her voice--"I shall never be
able to walk again; and, O Aunt Judith, can you guess what that means
to me?"

"Yea, my darling, I can," whispered the patient listener, "and your
cross is a heavy one to carry."

"Heavy!" muttered the sick girl; "so heavy that I shall not be able to
carry it patiently. It is bad enough just now, Aunt Judith, but think
what it will be when the months go rolling by and find me still weak
and helpless. How shall I bear my life, such a weary, weary life, week
after week, and year after year? I loved the world so much--the
bright, beautiful world with all its sunshine and flowers; and now I
feel as if I were withdrawn from it altogether. What will Dick say
when he comes home, and I cannot go with him here and there as in