Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed. [Illustration: The table was pushed to one side, its former contents cleared quite away, next Sunday's sermons among them.] GEOFF'S LITTLE SISTER. BY EVELYN R. GARRATT, AUTHOR OF "Dolly Do-Nothing," "An Ugly Hero," "Free to Serve," etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST SMYTHE. SMITH, SUITALL, IPSWICH. PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS, 1900. (Copyright). SMITHS, PRINTERS, BOOKBINDERS, AND PUBLISHERS, SUITALL, IPSWICH. "HE THAT IS SLOW TO ANGER IS BETTER THAN THE MIGHTY; AND HE THAT RULETH HIS SPIRIT THAN HE THAT TAKETH A CITY."—Proverbs xvi., 32. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. GEOFF'S CHARGE CHAPTER II. WHO BROKE THE DOLL? CHAPTER III. PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS CHAPTER IV. TAKING A CITY CHAPTER V. POOR LITTLE LAD! CHAPTER VI. THEIR MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT [Illustration] GEOFF'S LITTLE SISTER. CHAPTER I. GEOFF'S CHARGE. It was the end of November, and the cold winds were sweeping over the country, swaying the rooks backwards and forwards, as they perched on the topmost branches of the trees, opposite the nursery window. But Geoffrey was not looking at, nor thinking of the rooks. He sat doubled up before the fire, with his feet on the fender, staring at the red coals. Forbes and Jack were surveying with tear-stained faces a dish of oranges, which nurse had just placed before them with the words: "There, my laddies, you eat away at them oranges, and don't you cry no more. Come, come," she added, as Jack hid his face in her large white apron sobbing, "don't you take on my beauty like that, you'll make yourself sick. Be a good boy now, and try one of them oranges, they'll make you feel better—see if they don't," and wiping Jack's tears away with her apron, and giving him a hearty kiss, nurse's comfortable figure disappeared hurriedly from the room, for she was busy and was afraid of being delayed by the sound of her boy's sobbing, which sound made her kind old heart ache, for blue-eyed Jack was her darling.