py a place to the young--something to banish the look of
discontent which seemed to have settled on her face.

This was little Christie Redfern--just such a plain, common-looking
child as one might see anywhere without turning to look again. Her eyes
were neither black nor blue, but grey, and dark only when the long
lashes shaded them. Her mouth was too wide to be pretty, and her lips
were pale and thin. She might naturally have had a fair, soft skin; but
it was tanned and freckled by exposure to the air and sun, and looked
neither fair nor soft now. Her brow was high and broad, and would have
been pretty but that she gathered it together in wrinkles when she
looked at anything closely with her short-sighted eyes. She wore a dark
cotton frock and checked pinafore, and her feet, without stockings, were
slipped into shoes that seemed a world too big for them. She would not
have been pretty in any circumstances; but shuffling along in her big
shoes and odd dress, she was a very queer-looking little creature
indeed.

But there was something about the child more to be deplored than the
wide mouth, or the dim eyes, or the drooping figure. There was a look
of unhappiness upon her face which, as any one might see, was in
consequence of no momentary trouble. It seemed to be habitual. As she
plodded along with her eyes cast down on the rough pathway, it never
changed. Once, when the sun, which she thought had set, flashed out for
a moment through the clouds of purple and crimson, causing her to look
up suddenly, the sad expression passed away; but when her eyes fell it
was there again, and she sighed wearily, as though her thoughts were
always sad. It was a long time before she looked up again.

Indeed, there was not very much in the scene around her to attract the
attention of the child, even if her short-sighted eyes could have taken
in the view. There were the clouds; but their crimson and purple
glories had faded. There was the little grove of birch and maple by the
side of the brook--the prettiest place on her father's farm, Christie
thought; and that was all. A bird's-eye view of the country for many
miles around showed no variety of scenery, except the alternation of
long, broad fields of grass and wheat, or, rather, fields where grass
and wheat had been, with wide, irregular stretches of low-lying forest.
There was scarcely a hill deserving of the name to break the monotonous
level. It was a very fine cou