eft her, she was going home
again to live always. She did not like Canada. It did not seem like
home to her, though she was living in her father's house. She longed
for the time when she should be her own mistress.

Christie didn't enjoy the last part of her story very well. She could
not help thinking that some of the trials that the young lady hinted at
existed only in her own imagination. But she did not say so. She
listened to the whole with unabated interest, and in return, told
Gertrude the story of her own life. It was given in very few words.
She told about her mother's death, and their coming to Canada, and what
happened to them afterwards, till they had been obliged to leave the
farm and separate.

It is just possible that the young lady, who sat listening so quietly to
these simple details, took to herself the lesson which the story was so
well calculated to teach. But Christie had no thought of giving her a
lesson. She told of Effie's wise and patient guidance of their affairs,
of the self-denial cheerfully practised by all, of her own eager desire
to do her part to help keep the little ones together, of Effie's slow
consent to let her go; all this, far more briefly and quietly than Miss
Gertrude had spoken of her childish days that were passed in her aunt's
house. By experience the young lady knew nothing of the real trials of
life. She had no rule by which to estimate the suffering which comes
from poverty and separation, from solitary and uncongenial toil. Yet,
as she sat listening there, she caught a glimpse of something that made
her wish she had said less about the troubles that had fallen to her
lot. Christie faltered a little when she came to speak of the first
months of her stay in town, and of the time when her sister went away.

"I was very, very home-sick. If it hadn't been for shame, I would have
gone at the end of the first month. And when my sister went away in the
spring, and left me here, it was almost as bad. It seems like a
troubled dream to look back upon it. But it has passed now. It will
never be so bad again--never, I am sure."

"You have got over your home-sickness, then? And are you quite
contented now?" she asked, with great interest.

"Yes, I think so. I think it is right to stay. I am very glad to stay,
especially now that I am out here, in the country almost. There was a
while in the spring that I was afraid I should not be able to stay. But
I am bette