he occupied
herself in this manner for hours.

She never spoke to her sister about what she read, but when Kitty and she
were alone she would keep the child entranced for an hour together by the
stories she told her out of Miss Garston's books.

'Sometimes Kitty sings to her, and sometimes they have a rare talk,' Miss
Locke would say. 'I am often too busy to do more than look in for five
minutes or so, to see how they are getting on. Phoebe grumbles far less;
it is wonderful to hear her say, sometimes, that she did not know it was
bedtime, when I go in to fetch the lamp. Reading? ay, she is always
reading; but she sleeps a deal, too.'

I used to look round Phoebe's room with satisfaction now; it had quite
lost its stiff, angular look. A dark crimson foot-quilt lay on the bed,
a stand of green growing ferns was on the table, and two or three books
were always placed beside her.

Some gay china figures that I had hunted out of the glass cupboard in the
parlour enlivened the mantelpiece, and a simple landscape, with sheep
feeding in a sunny field, hung opposite the bed. Some pretty cretonne
curtains had replaced the dingy dark ones. Phoebe herself had a soft
fleecy gray shawl drawn over her thin shoulders. Mr. Hamilton again and
again commented on her improved appearance, but I always listened rather
silently; the evil spirit that had taken possession of Phoebe had not
finally left her; 'and why could not we cast it out?' used to come to
my lips sometimes as I looked at her; but all the same I knew the
Master-hand was needed for that.

Christmas Day fell this year on a Tuesday. On Sunday afternoon I had
finished my rounds and was returning home to tea, when, as I was passing
the Marshalls' cottage, Peggy ran after me bareheaded to say her father
had just arrived, and would I come in for a moment, as mother seemed a
little faint, and granny was frightened.

I hastened back with the child; for, of course, in poor Mary's state the
least shock might prove fatal. I found Marshall stooping over the bed and
supporting his wife with clumsy fondness, with the tears rolling clown
his weather-beaten face.

'I'm 'most 'feard she's gone, missis,' he said hoarsely. 'Poor lass,
I took her too sudden, and she had not the strength of the little un
there.'

I bade him lay her down gently, and then applied the necessary remedies,
and, to my great relief, my patient presently revived. It was touching to
see the weak hand trying to f