er silent. Margot wished she would be more
effusive, and she exerted herself to make up for Christine's
deficiency in this respect. But the release from great anxiety often
leaves the most thankful heart apparently quiet, and apparently
indifferent. Many who have prayed fervently for help, when the help
comes have no words on their tongues to speak their gratitude. Flesh
and spirit are exhausted, before the Deliverer they are speechless.
Then He who knoweth our infirmities speaks for us.

To make what dinner she could, and put the house in order was then
Christine's duty, and she went about it, leaving Roberta with Margot.
They soon became quite at ease with each other, and Christine could
hear them laughing at their own conversation. After awhile they were
very quiet, and Christine wondered if her mother had again become
sleepy. On the contrary, she found Margot more alive and more
interested than she had seen her since her husband's death.

There was a crochet needle between them, and they were both absorbed
in what it was doing. Crochet was then a new thing on the earth, as
far as England and Scotland was concerned; and at this date it was the
reigning womanly fad. Margot had seen and dreamed over such patterns
of it as had got into magazines and newspapers, but had never seen the
work itself. Now Roberta was teaching her its easy stitches, and
Margot, with all a child's enthusiasm, was learning.

"Look, Christine," she cried. "Look, Christine, at the bonnie wark I
am learning! It is the crochet wark. We hae read about it, ye ken, but
see for yoursel'. Look, lassie," and she proudly held out a strip of
the first simple edging.

The three women then sat down together, and there was wonder and
delight among them. A bit of fine, delicate crochet now gets little
notice, but then it was a new sensation, and women thought they lacked
an important source of pleasure, if they went anywhere without the
little silk bag holding their crochet materials. Roberta had crocheted
in the train, as long as it was light, and she fully intended to
crochet all day, as she sat talking to her new relations.

Margot could knit blindfolded, she learned by some native and natural
instinct. In two days she would have been able to teach Roberta.

There was a simple dinner of baked fish, and a cup of tea, and
Christine beat an egg in a cup and was going to carry it to Margot,
when Roberta stayed her. "Does she like it in that sloppy way?" s