Helen smiled a melancholy smile as she rose, saying wearily:

"They gave me that to make me laugh, but I did not find it funny;
neither was it sad enough to make me cry as you do."

"I was not reading, I was"--there Christie broke down, and could
have cried with vexation at the bad beginning she had made. But that
involuntary tear was better balm to Helen than the most perfect
tact, the most brilliant conversation. It touched and won her
without words, for sympathy works miracles. Her whole face changed,
and her mournful eyes grew soft as with the gentle freedom of a
child she lifted Christie's downcast face and said, with a falter in
her voice:

"I know you were pitying me. Well, I need pity, and from you I'll
take it, because you don't force it on me. Have you been ill and
wretched too? I think so, else you would never care to come and shut
yourself up here with me!"

"I have been ill, and I know how hard it is to get one's spirits
back again. I've had my troubles, too, but not heavier than I could
bear, thank God."

"What made you ill? Would you mind telling me about it? I seem to
fancy hearing other people's woes, though it can't make mine seem
lighter."

"A piece of the Castle of the Sun fell on my head and nearly killed
me," and Christie laughed in spite of herself at the astonishment in
Helen's face. "I was an actress once; your mother knows and didn't