fact remained that Elisabeth interested him profoundly. She was so original, so unexpected, that she was continually providing him with fresh food for thought. Although he was cleverer at lessons than she was, she was by far the cleverer at play; and though he had the finer character, hers was the stronger personality. It was because Elisabeth was so much to him that he now and then worried her easy-going conscience with his strictures; for, to do him justice, the boy was no prig, and would never have dreamed of preaching to anybody except her. But it must be remembered that Christopher had never heard of such things as spiritual evolutions and streams of tendency: to him right or wrong meant heaven or hell—neither more nor less; and he was overpowered by a burning anxiety that Elisabeth should eventually go to heaven, partly for her own sake, and partly (since human love is stronger than dogmas and doctrines) because a heaven, uncheered by the presence of Elisabeth, seemed a somewhat dreary place wherein to spend one's eternity.

"Why do feathers make a better sacrifice than paper?" repeated Christopher, Elisabeth being so much absorbed in his work that she had not answered his question.

"Oh! because they smell; and it seems so much more like a real sacrifice, somehow, if it smells."

"I see. What ideas you do get into your head!"

But Elisabeth's volatile thoughts had flown off in another direction. "You really have got awfully nice-coloured hair," she remarked, Chris having taken his cap off for the sake of coolness, as he was[Pg 23] heated with his toil. "I do wish I had light hair like yours. Angels, and goddesses, and princesses, and people of that kind always have golden hair; but only bad fairies and cruel stepmothers have nasty dark hair like me. I think it is horrid to have dark hair."

[Pg 23]

"I don't: I like dark hair best; and I don't think yours is half bad." Christopher never overstated a case; but then one had the comfort of knowing that he always meant what he said, and frequently a good deal more.

"Don't you really, Chris? I think it is hideous," replied Elisabeth, taking one of her elf-locks between her fingers and examining it as if it were a sample of material; "it is like that ugly brown seaweed which shows which way the wind blows—no, I mean that shows whether it is going to rain or not."

"Never mind; I've seen lots of people with uglier hair than yours." Chris really could be of great consolation 

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