She finished in a whisper, and stood looking before her in a kind of dazed despair. "I don't know,"--she faltered,--"I don't seem to know how to start over again," she said with an air of bewilderment. "Oh, Ellen!" cried Christina in a sudden rush of tenderness and pity that had to have an outlet, "wouldn't you like to go away for a while, till--right now, and do something and--and catch up?" A light flashed up for a moment in Ellen's eyes, but faded immediately. "How could I?" she cried, "and leave them here alone--I might as well think of going to the moon." "But you can. Yes, you must, right away. Allister would just as soon have you go out there as me. He said so, but he didn't think you would, and you'll go and I'll stay at home. It will only be for a little while, and you can see everything, and it'll just be grand!--" her eyes were shining, her cheeks pink with excitement. "Christine!" Ellen looked at the little sister, her eyes filled with unspeakable gratitude. "Oh, it wouldn't be right to let you--but if I only could--just for a little while, till he goes away, I might stand--" She sank down upon a little low bench and buried her face in her apron. "It seems too good to be true," she sobbed. Christina had a sudden vivid remembrance of a time when she dropped the heavy trap door of the cellar in a foolish prank and barely escaped giving Ellen a terrible blow on the head. And this time she might have killed her if she had been careless enough to forsake her in the day of her despair! CHAPTER VIII THE WAR DRUM "And what would the grand news be that you promised to tell me?" asked Grandpa, that evening, when bed-time came and Christina was getting the little hymn-book ready. "The news?" she hesitated, nonplussed. Then she went close and shouted into his ear, "Allister is going to take Ellen back to Prairie Park when he comes home, and perhaps she will stay with him all next winter." And she ran away before he could ask her to go into any of the details. But she could not help hearing him as he talked it over with himself. And the result of his conversation was that though he did not like to see any one of the family leave, and especially one of his girls, he was reconciled. "Aye, it'll be grand for Ellie, she's not been away, the bit lass, for a long time. But it's a grand thing he didn't take away my own lass. Eh, ah'm a selfish old body, but ah could ill spare her." And once more Christina was rather surprised that she was not desperately disappointed. It was hard to be very sad in the face of Grandpa's perfect contentment and Ellen's overwhelming relief.