The Farringdons | Page 9

Elisabeth, seemed a somewhat dreary place wherein to
spend one's eternity.
"Why do feathers make a better sacrifice than paper?" repeated
Christopher, Elisabeth being so much absorbed in his work that she had
not answered his question.
"Oh! because they smell; and it seems so much more like a real
sacrifice, somehow, if it smells."
"I see. What ideas you do get into your head!"
But Elisabeth's volatile thoughts had flown off in another direction.
"You really have got awfully nice-coloured hair," she remarked, Chris
having taken his cap off for the sake of coolness, as he was heated with
his toil. "I do wish I had light hair like yours. Angels, and goddesses,
and princesses, and people of that kind always have golden hair; but
only bad fairies and cruel stepmothers have nasty dark hair like me. I
think it is horrid to have dark hair."
"I don't: I like dark hair best; and I don't think yours is half bad."

Christopher never overstated a case; but then one had the comfort of
knowing that he always meant what he said, and frequently a good deal
more.
"Don't you really, Chris? I think it is hideous," replied Elisabeth, taking
one of her elf-locks between her fingers and examining it as if it were a
sample of material; "it is like that ugly brown seaweed which shows
which way the wind blows--no, I mean that shows whether it is going
to rain or not."
"Never mind; I've seen lots of people with uglier hair than yours." Chris
really could be of great consolation when he tried.
"Aren't the trees lovely when they have got all their leaves off?" said
Elisabeth, her thoughts wandering again. "I believe I like them better
now than I do in summer. Now they are like the things you wish for,
and in the summer they are like the things you get; and the things you
get are never half as nice as the things you wish for."
This was too subtle for Christopher. "I like them best with the leaves on;
but anyhow they are nicer to look at than the chimneys that we see
from our house. You can't think how gloomy it is for your rooms to
look out on nothing but smoke and chimneys and furnaces. When you
go to bed at night it's all red, and when you get up in the morning it's all
black."
"I should like to live in a house like that. I love the smoke and the
chimneys and the furnaces--they are all so big and strong and full of
life; and they make you think."
"What on earth do they make you think about?"
Elisabeth's gray eyes grew dreamy. "They make me think that the
Black Country is a wilderness that we are all travelling through; and
over it there is always the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by
night, to tell us which way to go. I make up tales to myself about the
people in the wilderness; and how they watch the pillar, and how it
keeps them from idling in their work, or selling bad iron, or doing

anything that is horrid or mean, because it is a sign to them that God is
with them, just as it used to be to the Children of Israel."
Christopher looked up from his work. Here was the old problem:
Elisabeth did not think about religion half as much as he did, and yet
the helpful and beautiful thoughts came to her and not to him. Still, it
was comforting to know that the smoke and the glare, which he had
hated, could convey such a message; and he made up his mind not to
hate them any more.
"And then I pretend that the people come out of the wilderness and go
to live in the country over there," Elisabeth continued, pointing to the
distant hills; "and I make up lovely tales about that country, and all the
beautiful things there. That is what is so nice about hills: you always
think there are such wonderful places on the other side of them."
For some minutes Christopher worked silently, and Elisabeth watched
him. Then the latter said suddenly:
"Isn't it funny that you never hate people in a morning, however much
you may have hated them the night before?"
"Don't you?" Rapid changes of sentiment were beyond Christopher's
comprehension. He was by no means a variable person.
"Oh! no. Last night I hated you, and made up a story in my own mind
that another really nice boy came to play with me instead of you. And I
said nice things to him, and horrid things to you; he and I played in the
wood, and you had to do