Mrs. Wilkins looked gratified, as she settled her brood round the table with a pile of pictorial papers to amuse them.  Then having laid herself out to be agreeable, she sat thoughtfully rubbing the bridge of her nose, at a loss how to begin.  Presently Christie helped her by an involuntary sigh.

“What’s the matter, dear?  Is there any thing I can do to make you comfortable?” asked the kind soul, alert at once, and ready to offer sympathy.

“I’m very cosy, thank you, and I don’t know why I sighed.  It’s a way I’ve got into when I think of my worries,” explained Christie, in haste.

“Wal, dear, I wouldn’t ef I was you.  Don’t keep turnin’ your troubles over.  Git atop of ’em somehow, and stay there ef you can,” said Mrs. Wilkins, very earnestly.

“But that’s just what I can’t do.  I’ve lost all my spirits and courage, and got into a dismal state of mind.  You seem to be very cheerful, and yet you must have a good deal to try you sometimes.  I wish you’d tell me how you do it;” and Christie looked wistfully into that other face, so plain, yet so placid, wondering to see how little poverty, hard work, and many cares had soured or saddened it.

“Really I don’t know, unless it’s jest doin’ whatever comes along, and doin’ of it hearty, sure that things is all right, though very often I don’t see it at fust.”

“Do you see it at last?”

“Gen’lly I do; and if I don’t I take it on trust, same as children do what older folks tell ’em; and byme-by when I’m grown up in spiritual things I’ll understan’ as the dears do, when they git to be men and women.”

That suited Christie, and she thought hopefully within herself: 

“This woman has got the sort of religion I want, if it makes her what she is.  Some day I’ll get her to tell me where she found it.”  Then aloud she said: 

“But it’s so hard to be patient and contented when nothing happens as you want it to, and you don’t get your share of happiness, no matter how much you try to deserve it.”

“It ain’t easy to bear, I know, but having tried my own way and made a dreadful mess on ’t, I concluded that the Lord knows what’s best for us, and things go better when He manages than when we go scratchin’ round and can’t wait.”

“Tried your own way?  How do you mean?” asked Christie, curiously; for she liked to hear her hostess talk, and found something besides amusement in the conversation, which seemed to possess a fresh country flavor as well as country phrases.

Mrs. Wilkins smiled all over her plump face, as if she liked to tell her experience, and having hunched sleepy little Andy more comfortably into her lap, and given a preparatory hem or two, she began with great good-will.