“Uncle, I want to go away, and get my own living, if you please,” was Christie’s abrupt beginning, as they sat round the evening fire.

“Hey! what’s that?” said Uncle Enos, rousing from the doze he was enjoying, with a candle in perilous proximity to his newspaper and his nose.

Christie repeated her request, and was much relieved, when, after a meditative stare, the old man briefly answered: 

“Wal, go ahead.”

“I was afraid you might think it rash or silly, sir.”

“I think it’s the best thing you could do; and I like your good sense in pupposin’ on’t.”

“Then I may really go?”

“Soon’s ever you like.  Don’t pester me about it till you’re ready; then I’ll give you a little suthing to start off with.”  And Uncle Enos returned to “The Farmer’s Friend,” as if cattle were more interesting than kindred.

Christie was accustomed to his curt speech and careless manner; had expected nothing more cordial; and, turning to her aunt, said, rather bitterly: 

“Didn’t I tell you he’d be glad to have me go?  No matter!  When I’ve done something to be proud of, he will be as glad to see me back again.”  Then her voice changed, her eyes kindled, and the firm lips softened with a smile.  “Yes, I’ll try my experiment; then I’ll get rich; found a home for girls like myself; or, better still, be a Mrs. Fry, a Florence Nightingale, or”—­

“How are you on’t for stockin’s, dear?”

Christie’s castles in the air vanished at the prosaic question; but, after a blank look, she answered pleasantly: 

“Thank you for bringing me down to my feet again, when I was soaring away too far and too fast.  I’m poorly off, ma’am; but if you are knitting these for me, I shall certainly start on a firm foundation.”  And, leaning on Aunt Betsey’s knee, she patiently discussed the wardrobe question from hose to head-gear.

“Don’t you think you could be contented any way, Christie, ef I make the work lighter, and leave you more time for your books and things?” asked the old lady, loth to lose the one youthful element in her quiet life.

“No, ma’am, for I can’t find what I want here,” was the decided answer.

“What do you want, child?”

“Look in the fire, and I’ll try to show you.”

The old lady obediently turned her spectacles that way; and Christie said in a tone half serious, half playful: 

“Do you see those two logs?  Well that one smouldering dismally away in the corner is what my life is now; the other blazing and singing is what I want my life to be.”

“Bless me, what an idee!  They are both a-burnin’ where they are put, and both will be ashes to-morrow; so what difference doos it make?”

Christie smiled at the literal old lady; but, following the fancy that pleased her, she added earnestly: