ur own programme for the day. You know me now,
and can surely understand that you need feel no ceremony in coming to my
house."

"No, indeed! You have been so kind to me all this time, that I should
be ungrateful if I did not realise that. I would rather be with you
than anyone else outside my own family, but--but--" the tears gathered
and rolled down the pale cheeks--"Oh, surely you understand that just
now I want to be at home with my own mother and father!"

"Yes, I do understand, poor dear; it would be unnatural if you felt
anything else; but listen, Evie, it is for your parents' sake, as well
as for your own, that I urge you to come. You need constant care and
nursing, and cheering up, and it would be very difficult for them to
manage all this just now. Your mother is overworked as it is, and has
already one invalid on her hands; but if you come to us, the whole
household will be at your service. My kind old Mary shall be your
nurse, and wait upon you hand and foot. I will drive you about so that
you can get the air without fatigue, and you shall have your couch
carried into the conservatory off the drawing-room, and lie there among
the flowers which you love so much. Every comfort that money can buy
shall be yours to help to make you strong again. I say it in no spirit
of boasting, dear, for we have been poor ourselves, and owe our riches
to no merit of our own. We look upon them as a trust from God, to be
used for the good of others even more than ourselves, and surely no one
had ever a nearer, stronger claim--"

Her voice broke off tremblingly, and Evie looked at her with a troubled
glance.

"Dear Mrs Chester, you are so good! It all sounds most attractive and
luxurious, and I am sure you would spoil me with kindness, but--would it
not be rather selfish? You say mother is overworked, and that is quite
true; but, all the same, she might feel hurt if I chose to go somewhere
else."

"Now, I'll tell you all about it," cried Mrs Chester briskly, scenting
victory in the air, and beginning to smile again in her old cheery
fashion. "Your mother and I had a talk about it before she left. She
felt grieved not to have you at home for Christmas, but for your own
sake was most anxious that you should come to us. She realised that it
would be better for you in every way, and the quickest means to the end
which we all have in view, to make you well and strong again. She left
it to me to make the suggestio