“Not much,” answered Sheila, “I’m very strong. Oscar has been ill oftener than I. Tell me about yourself, Effie? I want to know everything. Your mother wants me to be a sort of sister to you. Sisters ought to know everything about each other.” Effie, nothing loath, began a long history of herself. In a few days’ time Sheila had discovered that the way to keep her most satisfied and entertained was to let her talk about herself. Poor child, it was scarcely her own fault. Her mother never tired of asking her about her every symptom, and listening to her accounts of how every hour had been passed. She talked almost ceaselessly of Effie to everybody who would listen. She had almost lost her identity in that of her last surviving child. It seemed to Sheila that poor Effie had had enough doctors and enough experiments in treatment tried upon her to kill anybody, and when she ventured to say as much to Effie herself, the girl at once and cordially agreed. “I hate the very sight of them. I feel as though I’d never have another near me. I mean not to care now whether I get better or not. The harder I try, the worse I am. I’m just not going to care about anything again!” That was decidedly one of Effie’s moods—a sort of defiance of everything and everybody. At other times she would be gentler, sometimes she was depressed. Then she would have a spell of high spirits, in which she often overdid herself, and brought on one of her attacks of breathlessness and oppression. Sheila looked on and listened and wondered. Sometimes she was quite fond of Effie, sorry for her, and eager to do anything she could. At others, again, she felt a decided longing to shake her, and grew fairly out of patience at the way she had of bringing every subject started round to herself again. Others had noticed this defect in Effie. Her cousins had named it in Sheila’s hearing, but they had never spoken of it to the girl herself, and Sheila never meant to; but one day almost in spite of herself, the words sprang to her lips. “Effie, do you ever think about anything or anybody but yourself? I do think you’d be so much better if you would. I don’t know if you know it or care; but you talk about yourself from morning to night. It does get so tiresome, and I’m sure it’s bad for you!” Effie stopped short in what she was about to say, and stared at Sheila hard. The girl coloured under the sharp gaze. Sheila was very placable by nature, and hated anybody to be angry with her; but she had not learned the lesson yet of thinking before she spoke. “I beg your pardon if I vexed you,” she said; “but——” “That’ll do,” said Effie shortly; “I don’t want to hear any more! You can go now! You’d better take that ride you’ve been wanting to so long! I don’t want anybody with me who thinks it tiresome to talk to me!”