Christopher looked up from his work. Here was the old problem: Elisabeth did not think about religion half as much as he did, and yet the helpful and beautiful thoughts came to her and not to him. Still, it was comforting to know that the smoke and the glare, which he had hated, could convey such a message; and he made up his mind not to hate them any more. "And then I pretend that the people come out of the wilderness and go to live in the country over there," Elisabeth continued, pointing to the distant hills; "and I make up lovely tales about that country, and all the beautiful things there. That is what is so nice about hills: you always think there are such wonderful places on the other side of them." For some minutes Christopher worked silently, and Elisabeth watched him. Then the latter said suddenly: "Isn't it funny that you never hate people in a morning, however much you may have hated them the night before?" "Don't you?" Rapid changes of sentiment were beyond Christopher's comprehension. He was by no means a variable person. "Oh! no. Last night I hated you, and made up a story in my own mind that another really nice boy came to play with me instead of you. And I said nice things to him, and horrid things to you; he and I played in the wood, and you had to do lessons all by yourself at school, and had nobody to play with. But when I woke up this morning I didn't care about the pretending boy any more, and I wanted you." Christopher looked pleased; but it was not his way to express his pleasure in words. "And so, I suppose, you came to look for me," he said. "Not the first thing. Somehow it always makes you like a person better when you have hated them for a bit, so I liked you awfully when I woke this morning and remembered you. When you really are fond of a person, you always want to do something to please them; so I went and told Cousin Maria that I'd read a lot of books in the library without thinking whether I ought to or not; but that now I wanted her to say what I might read and what I mightn't." This was a course of action that Christopher could thoroughly understand and appreciate. "Was she angry?" he asked. "Not a bit. That is the best of Cousin Maria--she never scolds you unless you really deserve it; and she is very sharp at finding out whether you deserve it or not. She said that there were a lot of books in the library that weren't suitable for a little girl to read; but that it wasn't naughty of me to have read what I chose, since nobody had told me not to. And then she said it was good of me to have told her, for she should never have found it out if I hadn't." "And so it was," remarked Christopher approvingly. "No; it wasn't--and I told her it wasn't. I told her that the goodness was yours, because it was you that made me tell. I should never have thought of it by myself." "I say, you are a regular brick!"