"I couldn't think of tea, or of anything else till you came back," the beautiful woman exclaimed, stretching out her hands to the girl, with feverish eagerness. "Was he vexed--my poor Max--was he dreadfully vexed when you took the doctor to his room?" Christina was conscious of a sudden wonder. Why, she speculated, did this woman's voice drop into accents of such divine tenderness when she spoke of the sick man? What attraction could that weak, querulous invalid possess for this stately, beautiful creature, who, to the girl's admiring eyes, seemed as far above him as a star is far from the earth. Why did she love him, as she most obviously did, with that intense, overmastering love which in a woman of this calibre almost approaches to the divine? "Just at first he was rather vexed," she answered, "but Dr. Fergusson is very tactful; he inspires confidence. I think it will be all right now. And I have come back here to have some tea with you," she added brightly, seeing and understanding the old servant's anxious glances. "I am going to confess that I have been awake a great deal of the night, and tea will be very refreshing." She added these words, because she saw that the other woman would be more likely to drink her own tea, if she felt that Christina was really in need of the refreshment, and her surmise was right. "Oh! but you must have your tea at once," the woman in the bed exclaimed. "I can't bear to think I have been keeping you awake; indeed, it is dreadful to think that you have all unwittingly come into my shadowed life," she added under her breath, whilst the girl seated herself beside the bed; and Elizabeth served them both. "I am glad I have been able to help you," Christina said impulsively, when the servant softly left the room; "you don't know how glad I should be if I could do anything--to--make things easier for you," she ended rather lamely, but the admiration in her eyes was unmistakable, and the shapely white hand with its one ring, was laid on Christina's. "You have helped me to-night more than you suppose," she said; "there is something very restful about your personality, little girl, do you know that? All night you have given me a feeling of rest and peace." "I am glad," Christina answered, a light flashing into her eyes; "I believe I would rather be restful to people than anything else in the world." "A rest-bringer," was the soft answer; "you will always be that, if you go on as you have begun. And, it is work worth doing--to bring rest to tired souls, to those who go through the vale of misery, who know--what pain means. Be a rest-bringer, little girl; you could not be anything better or sweeter."