'We will have people made to order for you, then; people who shall be always admiring you and praising you and flattering you.' He rung changes on this theme for five minutes or so, and when he paused, she made a grimace, as if she had been compelled to swallow a dose of medicine. But this kind of warfare did not alter her nature. She coaxed my mother to buy a pair of pretty ornaments for the mantelshelf; she coaxed uncle Bryan--how she managed it, heaven only knows! but she was cunning, and she must have entrapped him in an unguarded moment--to allow her to buy a piece of oil-cloth for the table, and she herself chose the pattern; and in many other ways she made it apparent that a new spirit was at work in our household. She made the bedroom in which she and my mother slept the prettiest room in the house; pictures were hung or pasted on the wall; her own especial looking-glass was set in a framework of white muslin, daintily edged with blue ribbon. 'Blue is my favourite colour,' she said, as she stood, the fairest object there, pointing out to me some trifling improvement; 'it suits my complexion.' It is not difficult to understand how popular she soon became in the neighbourhood; admiring eyes followed her whenever she appeared in the narrow streets round about, and I would not have changed places with an emperor when I walked out with her by my side. If any one quality in her could have made her more precious to me, it was her feeling towards my mother. 'No one can help loving her,' said Jessie to me, in one of our confidential conversations. 'Is she ever angry with any one?' 'I think not,' I replied. 'Where another person would be angry, she is sorry. There isn't another mother in the world like mine.' 'Would you like me to be like her? Would it be better for me, do you think?' I like you as you are, Jessie; I shouldn't like you to alter. There are different kinds of good people, you know.' 'I am not good.' 'Nonsense! you not good!' 'Your mother is, Chris; she never goes to bed without kneeling down and saying her prayers.' 'I know it, Jessie. And you?' 'Oh, I often forget--always when I go to bed before her. When we go together, I kneel down, and shut my eyes; but I don't say anything. I see things.' On one occasion Jessie met me at the street-door when I came home from work, and led me with an air of importance into the sitting-room, where my mother sat in a new dress and a cap with ribbons in it. My mother blushed as I looked at her. 'She _would_ make me do it, Chris,' she said apologetically. 'Now doesn't she look prettier so?' asked Jessie. There was no denying it; I had never seen my mother look so attractive, and I kissed her and told her so. 'That makes it all right,' cried Jessie, clapping her hands. 'All the time I was persuading her, she said, "What will Chris say?" and, "Will not Chris think it strange?"'