So Christie thought, as he entered it that sultry day; it seemed to him as far as ever from "Home, sweet Home." Yet, of all the places which he visited as a Scripture-reader, there was no place in which Christie took such an interest as Ivy Court. For he could not forget those dreary days when he had been a little homeless wanderer, and had gone there for a night's lodging. And he could not forget the old attic which had been the first place, since his mother's death, that he had been able to call home. It was to this very attic he was going this afternoon. He climbed the rickety stairs, and as he did so he thought of the night when he had crept up them for the first time, and had knelt down outside old Treffy's door, listening to the organ. Christie had never parted with that organ, his old master's last gift to him. And scarcely a week passed that he did not turn the handle, and listen to the dear old tunes. And he always finished with "Home, sweet Home," for he still loved that tune the best. And when Miss Mabel came to see him, she always wanted to turn the old organ in remembrance of her childish days. She was not Miss Mabel any longer now, though Christie still sometimes called her so when they were talking together of the old days, and of Treffy and his organ. But Mabel was married now to the clergyman under whom Christie was working, and she took great interest in the young Scripture-reader, and was always ready to help him with her advice and sympathy. And she would ask Christie about the poor people he visited, and he would tell her which of them most needed her aid. And where she was most needed young Mrs. Villiers was always ready to go. And so it came to pass that when Christie knocked at the old attic door, it was opened for him by Mrs. Villiers herself, who had just come there to see a poor sick woman. She had not met Christie in that attic since the days when they were both children, and Mabel smiled as he came in, and said to him, "Do you remember the occasion when we met here before?" "Yes," said Christie, "I remember it well; there were four of us here then, Mrs. Villiers, and two out of the four have gone to the bright city which we talked of then." "Yes," said Mabel, with tears in her eyes; "they are waiting for us in 'Home, sweet Home.'" The attic did not look any more cheerful that day than it had done when old Treffy lived there. The window-panes were nearly all broken and filled with pieces of brown paper or rag. The floor was more rotten than ever, and the boards seemed as if they must give way when Christie crossed the room to speak to a forlorn-looking woman who was sitting on a chair by the smouldering fire. She was evidently very ill and very unhappy. Four little children were playing about, and making so much noise that Christie could hardly hear their mother speak when she told him she was "no better, no better at all, and she did not think she ever should be."