Sarah shrugged her shoulders.
“I dare say we should. But Christie doesna seem to mind much what Aunt Elsie says. I’m sure I thought she liked better to be there than to be working hard in the kitchen or dairy.”
“She may like it better, but it’s no’ so good for her, for all that. You should send her out, and try and cheer her up, poor lassie! She’s no’ so strong as the rest of us; and she suffers much from the shock.”
That night, when the time for bringing home the cows came, Effie took her sun-bonnet from the nail, saying carelessly:
“I’m going to the pasture. Are you coming, Christie?”
“For the cows?” said Christie, tartly. “The bairns go for them.”
“Oh, but I’m going for the pleasure of the walk. We’ll go through the wheat, and down by the brook. Come.”
Christie would far rather have stayed quietly at home, but she did not like to refuse Effie; and so she went, and was better for it. At first Effie spoke of various things which interested them as a family; and Christie found herself listening with pleasure to all her plans. At the side of the brook, where they sat down for a while, as they usually did, they spoke of their father and mother; and though Christie wept, it was not that nervous weeping which sometimes so exhausted her. She wept gently; and when Effie spoke of the love that should bind them all closely together, now that they were orphans, she prayed inwardly that God would make her more patient and loving than she had lately been. Her heart was lighter than it had been for days, when they rose to go.
They went to the kirk together the next day too. They did not walk; so there was no lingering in the kirk-yard or at the half-mile corner. But the day was fine and the air pleasant; and the motion of the great wagon in which they drove, though not very easy, was agreeable for a change, and Christie enjoyed it all. I am afraid she did not enjoy the sermon better than usual. She had a great many wandering thoughts, and she had to struggle against overpowering drowsiness, which she did not quite succeed in casting off. But she enjoyed the kind greetings and looks of sympathy that awaited them in the kirk-yard, though they brought many tears to Effie’s eyes, and sent them gushing over her own pale cheeks. She was glad of old Mrs Grey’s sweet, cheerful words, and of the light pressure of blind Allie’s little hand. She was glad when she heard Mrs Nesbitt ask Effie to bring her sister over to pass a week with her, and more glad still when Effie made the promise, saying the change would do her good. Altogether, the day was a pleasant one, and Christie went home better and more cheerful than she had been since her father’s death.
But before the week was over she had fallen back into the old way again; and when Effie came home on Saturday, she found her as wan and listless and peevish as ever. Something must be done without delay, thought the elder sister. So, that night, as she sat with Annie and Sarah in her aunt’s room, when all the little ones had gone to bed, she said: