"Peace and goodwill to men"--peace from weary arguments and fruitless regret, peace on mourning hearts, on divided homes, on mariners tossing afar on wintry seas, and peace surely on one troubled girlish heart that waited for the breaking of a more perfect day. CHAPTER XI. MISS RUTH'S NURSE. Miss Ruth insisted on giving me a week's holiday, that I might avail myself of Allan's society; and as dear mother still persisted that I looked pale and in need of change, Allan gave me a course of bracing exercise in the shape of long country walks with him and Jack, when we plowed our way over half-frozen fields and down deep, muddy lanes, scrambling over gates and through hedges, and returning home laden with holly berries and bright red hips and haws. On Allan's last evening we were invited to dine at the Cedars--just Uncle Geoffrey, Allan, and I. Miss Ruth wrote such a pretty letter. She said that her brother thought it was a long time since he had seen his old friend Dr. Cameron, and that he was anxious to make acquaintance with his nephew and Flurry's playfellow--this was Miss Ruth's name for me, for we had quite dropped the governess between us. Allan looked quite pleased, and scouted my dubious looks; he had taken a fancy to Miss Ruth, and wanted to see her again. He laughed when I said regretfully that it was his last evening, and that I would rather have spent it quietly at home with him. I was shy at the notion of my first dinner-party; Mr. Lucas' presence would make it a formal affair. And then mother fretted a little that I had no evening-dress ready. I could not wear white, so all my pretty gowns were useless; but I cheered her up by my assuring her that such things did not matter in our deep mourning. And when I had dressed myself in my black cashmere, with soft white ruffles and a little knot of Christmas roses and ferns which Carrie had arranged in my dress, mother gave a relieved sigh, and thought I should do nicely, and Allan twisted me round, and declared I was not half so bad after all, and that, though I was no beauty, I should pass, with which dubious compliment I was obliged to content myself. "I wish you were going in my stead, Carrie," I whispered, as she wrapped me in mother's warm fleecy shawl, for the night was piercingly cold. "I would rather stay with mother," she answered quietly. And then she kissed me, and told me to be a good child, and not to be frightened of any one, in her gentle, elder sisterly way. It never occurred to her to envy me my party or my pleasant position at the Cedars, or to compare her own uncongenial work with mine. These sorts of petty jealousies and small oppositions were impossible to her; her nature was large and slightly raised, and took in wider vistas of life than ours.