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She gave a deep sigh as she took up first one pail and then the other and emptied the wash into the pig-trough without spilling a drop by the way. Anna stood watching her admiringly. "Well!" Christina turned round on her. "I ask myself, what is the use of you, child? You are fifteen, and so far it seems to me that you are here only to make work for others!
"I shall call you a true knight with all my heart," cried Christina, the tears rushing into her eyes, "if you will respect my weakness and loneliness." He stood up again, as if to move away; then paused, and, twisting his gold chain, said, "And how am I ever to be what the happy one bade me, if you will not show me how?"
'Miss Graham has not come home, Christina, she said fussily, as she shook hands with them both, 'but I feel sure she will be here to-night. Meantime I must do what I can to make you comfortable. Come with me to your old room, Christina, and you shall have tea directly.
Arrayed, as her sons loved to see her, in black velvet, and with pearl-bordered cap, Christina sat by her aunt in the tapestried balcony, and between them stood or sat little Thekla von Adlerstein Wildschloss, whose father had entrusted her to their care, to see the procession pass by.
For a berry-patch was community property, and when the crop was plentiful, as it was this year, a berry-picking became a pleasant social function, where one met friends from near and far, and picnicked with them under the trees. Christina was working with furious speed. She and Sandy had been racing all morning to see who would be the first to fill a four-quart pail.
"What do you mean by a chance? She has only to take it. I told her I liked her immensely, and she frowned as if I had said something disgusting. She looks very handsome when she frowns." Christina rose, with these words, and began to gather her mantle about her. "I don't often like women," she went on. "In fact I generally detest them. But I should like to know Miss Garland well.
Then Ib brought out another match, and lighted a piece of candle which he found in the room, and it threw a glimmering light over the wretched dwelling. Ib looked at the little girl, and thought of Christina in her young days. For her sake, could he not love this child, who was a stranger to him? As he thus reflected, the dying woman opened her eyes, and gazed at him. Did she recognize him?
Somehow the sight of Sandy in the uniform of his country's service had overwhelmed Christina with a sense of the great gulf that had yawned between them. Sandy and Neil were gone and there were two soldier-men in their place. Manlike, they did not understand her tears. "Goodness, Christine!" cried Sandy, jovially, "if you're sorry we've come home, we can turn right back if you'd rather."
Ib sat down to write, but he could not get on at all. The words were not what he wished to say, so he tore up the page. The following morning, however, a letter lay ready to be sent to Christina, and the following is what he wrote: "The letter written by you to your father I have read, and see from it that you are prosperous in everything, and that still better fortune is in store for you.
"So!" he answered, adopting my words, and afterward using them at a church social with some effect. "In spite of Hell Slew and high water. An' if dey bane too soft in de hand to come, I bring you out a fine farm girl from Norvay." This idea furnished us meat for much joking, and then it grew almost earnest, as jokes will. We finally settled down to a cousin of his, Christina Quale.
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