THE NORTHOROFT LILIES.

 "Cc Well, it is done, and we shall have to go; so it
 is no use grumbling," said Effie. There will be
 heaps to do before we go, and it is the tenth of
 December now. We shall at least have a garden, I
 suppose, fen or no fen; and papa looks so ill and
 worn out. I think we ought to be glad for his sake,
 Gertrude."
 But Gertrude did not look glad, neither did she
 feel so. Dearly as she loved her papa, this leaving
 London was her first trial, and it was to her as if all
 the sunshine had gone; and inside and out of the
 house everything seemed to her mind wrapped in the
 thick December gloom.
 Now, if you had asked Effie Layton to describe
 Gertrude, she would have most probably replied, Oh,
 she is a dear child, but much too impulsive." But
 Effie, with all her quiet self-complacency, and the
 added wisdom of her greater age and experience, was
 very dependent on her little sister's sunny spirits
 (though she might not have cared to own it); and
 when two days had passed, and Gertrude still moped
 and refused to take comfort in anything, Effie bethought
 herself of every imaginable thing to rouse her (for she
 would not trouble her mamma about it), and then at
 last went to the school-room, where Gertrude was
 diligently doing penance by practising scales, though
 it was Saturday morning, the children's holiday; and
 Gertrude herself had often declared it was one thing
 that always was, always had been, and always should
 be, and nothing would make her work on a day whose
 whole and sole object was amusement.
 But here she was this cold morning, with a dis.
contented look ill becoming her round rosy face, and
with little blue fingers working away resolutely when
Effie went up to her.