Elisabeth looked puzzled. "I don't see anything brickish in saying that; it was the truth. It was you that made me tell, you know; and it wasn't fair for me to be praised for your goodness."

"You really are awfully straight, for a girl," said Christopher, with admiration; "you couldn't be straighter if you were a boy."

This was high praise, and Elisabeth's pale little face glowed with delight. She loved to be commended.

"It was really very good of you to speak to Miss Farringdon about the books," continued Christopher; "for I know you'll hate having to ask permission before you read a tale."

"I didn't do it out of goodness," said Elisabeth thoughtfully—"I did it to please you; and pleasing a person you are fond of isn't goodness. I wonder if grown-up people get to be as fond of religion as they are of one another. I expect they do; and then they do good things just for the sake of doing good."

"Of course they do," replied Christopher, who was always at sea when Elisabeth became metaphysical.[Pg 27]

[Pg 27]

"I suppose," she continued seriously, "that if I were really good, religion ought to be the same to me as Cousin Anne."

"The same as Cousin Anne! What do you mean?"

"I mean that if I were really good, religion would give me the same sort of feelings as Cousin Anne does."

"What sort of feelings?"

"Oh! they are lovely feelings," Elisabeth answered—"too lovely to explain. Everything is a treat if Cousin Anne is there. When she speaks, it's just like music trickling down your back; and when you do something that you don't like to please her, you feel that you do like it."

"Well, you are a rum little thing! I should think nobody ever thought of all the queer things that you think of."

"Oh! I expect everybody does," retorted Elisabeth, who was far too healthy minded to consider herself peculiar. After another pause, she inquired: "Do you like me, Chris?"

"Rather! What a foolish question to ask!" Christopher replied, with a blush, for he was always shy of talking about his feelings; and the more he felt the shyer he became.

But Elisabeth was not shy, 

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