f my mind that she always made the
most of every little ailment, and that it was wrong of you and mother to
give in to her. I never thought it would come to this." And Christine
sobbed afresh.

"Yes, I know what you mean; but, indeed, Chrissy, dear, you need not
distress yourself so. Hatty forgave everything long ago; she was never
one to bear malice--no, her nature was too sweet for that."

"But I might have made her happier," persisted Christine. "I need not
have minded her worrying so over every little trifle, but I was always
losing patience, and getting vexed with her. I used to wonder at your
bearing with her as you did, and I thought it a mistake to give way to
all her humors. I never imagined that she was cross because she was
suffering, but father says all her gloomy fancies and tiresome little
ways came from her bad health."

"I might have made her happier!" That speech went to Bessie's heart.
"Listen to me, darling," she said eagerly; "think rather of how, by your
waywardness, you have wounded the loving heart of Jesus, and sinned
against Him. Let the sense of Hatty's loss send you to him in penitence
for pardon. Nothing can now undo the past; but you can set yourself in
the grace and strength which Jesus gives to do all in your power to make
the lives of those around you happier. I do not want to make you more
miserable, but what you have just said reminds me so of a passage I
copied only the other day out of one of Tom's books; it was written by a
man who failed in his own life, but was very gentle and very tolerant of
other people. 'Oh, let us not wait,' he says, 'to be just, or pitiful,
or demonstrative toward those we love, until they or we are struck down
by illness, or threatened with death. Life is short, and we have never
too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the
dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!' And
then in another place he says, and that is so true, too, 'Never to tire,
never to grow cold; to be patient, sympathetic, tender; to look for the
budding flower and the opening heart, to hope always like God; to love
always--this is duty.'"

Christine made a despairing gesture. "It is a duty in which I have
utterly failed," she said bitterly.

"You think you might have been kinder to Hatty; that is just what Tom
said of himself the other day. I am afraid many people have these sort
of reproachful thoughts when they lose one they love. Ev