at would do you all the good in
the world--a talk with Aunt Judith. I am sure she would never laugh
away your thoughts or refuse to listen, she is so good and kind; and
when she speaks, one feels as if all one's wicked passions were hushed
away."

Winnie brightened visibly.

"Is that so?" she inquired; "then I should dearly like to see her.
Won't you invite me to spend some afternoon with you, Nellie, and allow
me to see Aunt Judith and your cosy wee home?"

"I shall be only too pleased, Winnie," replied her companion. Then the
two friends parted and went their respective roads--one to a
fashionable home where gaiety reigned supreme and pleasure filled up
every hour; the other to a lowly cottage-dwelling where God's holy name
was hallowed, and the Christ-life showed itself clear and bright in
Aunt Judith's daily walk.

CHAPTER VI.

WINNIE'S HOME.

That same evening Winnie and Dick were alone together in the oak
parlour; a room sacred to themselves, where they ate, studied, played,
and lived, as it were, a life quite apart from that of the other
inmates of the family, who, occupied with business or domestic duties
through the day, spent evening after evening in a round of gaiety and
amusement. Brother and sister enjoyed little of the society of their
elders during the week, but on Saturdays and Sabbaths they were usually
expected to lunch with their parents--an honour which, I am sorry to
say, neither appreciated; for somehow Dick seldom failed to commit a
gross blunder or make some absurd speech at a critical moment, and
Winnie, though a general favourite, refused to be happy when he was
sternly upbraided for his fault.

The father, a man of wide culture and refinement, had no patience with
his son's clumsy movements and slow brain, refusing to look under the
surface and see the great loving heart which beat there with its wealth
of warm true affection; while Mrs. Blake and the elder brothers and
sisters regarded him in the light of a good-for-nothing or general
scapegrace. The result was that Dick hid the many sterling qualities
of his nature under a gruff, forbidding exterior, and only
tender-hearted Winnie guessed how he winced and writhed under the
mocking word or light laugh indulged in at his expense. Resenting them
bitterly, she gathered up all the love of her passionate little heart
and showered it on him, idolizing this big brother of hers to such an
extent that even his faults seemed gilde