ade her heavy, sick, and faint with
associations, and that He would render her contented with many
undeserved blessings, and resigned to many natural penalties which He
ordained. Next, with strange inconsistency to all but the Hearer of
prayer and the Framer of the wayward human heart, she besought to be
forgiven and delivered from levity and folly--to be kept humble and
mindful of death. "It is ill tearing up weeds by the roots," she said to
herself plainly, when she had risen from her knees, "and I am vain and
volatile, and I like to mystify and tease my neighbour to this day."

II.

Christmas Day rose with a clear, frosty blue sky. Miss Sandys and Miss
West both felt the unwonted stillness of the house; and they could not
help a lurking suspicion that time without public occupation might hang
a dead weight on their hands. The two ladies went through the ceremony
of wishing each other a merry Christmas, Scotland though it was. Miss
Sandys went off to put into execution her holiday cooking practice--for
it was refreshing to her to have a bowl instead of a book in her
grasp--and to make her preparations for welcoming her primitive cousins.
Miss West sat down to write her letters and to work at her veil and at
her other New Year's gifts.

She wished she could work with her mind as well as her fingers, so that
it might not run on picturing what this day was in tens of thousands of
homes throughout Christendom. It had always been an unruly member this
fancy of hers, and it was particularly busy at this season. Yesterday
the roads had resounded with the blithe tramp of eager feet hieing
homewards. To-day the air was ringing with the pleasant echo of voices
round hearths, the fires of which flashed like the sun, and where age
and youth met in the perfect confidence and sweet fearlessness of family
affection. In her mind's eye, she had yesterday seen railways and
coaches disgorging their cheerful loads; she had witnessed the meetings
at lodge gates, in halls, and on the thresholds of parlour and cottage
kitchens; she had looked on the bountiful boards, where cherished guests
crowned the festival, of which Miss Sandys' rasping tea and stale cake
was a half-pathetic, half-comic version. To-day she was in spirit with
the multitude walking in close groups to holly-wreathed churches,
sharing in the light-hearted thoughtlessness of many an acknowledgment,
and in the deep gratitude of many a thanksgiving. She strove to put
hers