down. But she kept on saying, "Be patient, be patient;" and at last the tears got tired of coming, and troubled her no more. She had pulled up an ugly weed called "Impatience" that morning.

Soon after, Jack came in with his empty basket.

"Well, Nannie, I wish I were in your place—not obliged to go to church, and not sick enough to lose your dinner. I always go to church, for fear, if I'm sick, father'll say, 'Turkey isn't good for headache.' I never thought of such a convenient excuse as spraining my ankle. Let me hear how you did it. It's too late to try it now, but it may do the next time."

"O Jack, how you do talk! I'm so glad you're better than you talk."

"How do you know that, Miss Nannie?"

"Why, everybody knows it. This morning you laughed at me; but as soon as you found out I was really hurt, you drew me and that big basket too on your barrow. You're so kind."

Jack whistled a tune and kicked the fire-irons, because he didn't want Nannie to see the tears that started. He was too much of a boy to let them do anything but start.

"Jack," Nannie began, after a pause, "why don't you like to go to church?" She was saying to herself all the time, "In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem."

"Oh, I don't know; I should like it well enough if father would let me sit up with the rest of the boys in the gallery."

"But you wouldn't do as they do in church, Jack?"

"Why not?"

"It's God's house," said Nannie softly. Jack sat silent for a long time, while Nannie lay looking into the fire, and whispering all the time to herself, "Be patient, be patient."

That afternoon, as father, mother, and children were engaged beside her, Nannie lay on her couch and looked on; but she did not need to say, "Be patient, be patient," for she was patient; and when her father, stopping for a moment, whispered, "Is all right, Nannie?" she said, smiling, "Yes, father; trying helps, doesn't it?"

Swiftly the evening fled. They had cracked nuts and eaten apples, till even Jack was satisfied; and as the fire burned down, and Charlie lay asleep in his mother's lap, the father said, "How many things we have to be thankful for this year! Let us each tell of something, and then together we will offer our sacrifice of thanksgiving."

The mother's fingers played in Charlie's curls, as she said, "I thank my heavenly Father for my children's lives."

They were still for a moment. They all remembered the sad days of last winter, when they gathered round the fire and whispered anxiously together, while Charlie tossed and wearied on his sick-bed.

Then sister Mary said, "I thank him for his Son Jesus Christ."

Then Belle, in a softened tone, said, "I thank him for our pleasant home."

Jack said, while Nannie looked up with a pleasant smile, "I thank him for my little sister."

Then it was Nannie's turn, and, smiling to her father, she said, "I thank him for patience."

So ended their Christmas-day.

CHAPTER IV.

SOMETHING NEW.

"So much nicer than a brother!" exclaimed Jack, who was looking on with affected indifference. "I'd like to know how many snowballs that 'dear little hand,' as you call it, will make for you. I'm sure I'd like as good a