ne now."

"Yes, I remember it well enough; but I'm all right now, Betty. Don't
worry about me."

"But I do worry when you're ill; I always did. Don't you remember that
when you had measles and I wasn't allowed to see you, I cried myself to
sleep for three nights running, because I thought you were going to
die, and that everything would be vile without you? And then I had a
prayer-meeting about you in Mrs. Bateson's parlour, and I wrote the
hymns for it myself. The Batesons wept over them and considered them
inspired, and foretold that I should die early in consequence." And
Elisabeth laughed at the remembrance of her fame.

Christopher laughed too. "That was hard on you! I admit that
verse-writing is a crime in a woman, but I should hardly call it a
capital offence. Still, I should like to have heard the hymns. You were
great at writing poetry in those days."

"Wasn't I? And I used to be so proud when you said that my poems weren't
'half bad'!"

"No wonder; that was high praise from me. But can't you recall those
hymns?"

The hymnist puckered her forehead. "I can remember the beginning of the
opening one," she said; "it was a six-line-eights, and we sang it to a
tune called Stella; it began thus:

"How can we sing like little birds,
And hop about among the boughs?
How can we gambol with the herds,
Or chew the cud among the cows?
How can we pop with all the weasles
Now Christopher has got the measles?"

"Bravo!" exclaimed the subject of the hymn. "You are a born hymn-writer,
Elisabeth. The shades of Charles Wesley and Dr. Watts bow to your
obvious superiority."

"Well, at any rate, I don't believe they ever did better at fourteen;
and it shows how anxious I was about you even then when you were ill. I
am just the same now--quite as fond of you as I was then; and you are
of me, too, aren't you?"

"Quite." Which was perfectly true.

"Then that's all right," said Elisabeth contentedly; "and, you see, it
is because I am so fond of you that I tell you of your faults. I think
you are so good that I want you to be quite perfect."

"I see."

The missionary spirit is an admirable thing; but a man rarely does it
full justice when it is displayed--toward himself--by the object of his
devotion.

"If I wasn't so fond of you I shouldn't try to improve you."

"Of course not; and if you were a little fonder of me you wouldn't want
to improve me. I perfectly understand."

"Dear old Ch