You don't feel cold, do you ?" And Christopher's face grew quite anxious.
"Not at all." "You don't seem to me to have enough furbelows and things round your neck to keep you warm," continued he; "let me tie it up tighter, somehow." And while he turned up the fur collar of her coat and hooked the highest hook and eye, Elisabeth thought how nice it was to be petted and taken care of; and as she walked homeward by Christopher's side, she felt like a good little girl again.

Even reigning monarchs now and then like to have their ermine tucked round them, and to be patted on their crowns by a protecting hand.
As the weeks rolled on and the spring drew nearer, Elisabeth gradually took up the thread of human interest again.

Fortunately for her she was very busy with plans for the benefit of the work-people at the Osierfield.

She started a dispensary; she opened an institute; she inaugurated courses of lectures and entertainments for keeping the young men out of the public-houses in the evenings; she gave to the Wesleyan Conference a House of Rest--a sweet little house, looking over the fields toward the sunset--where tired ministers might come and live at ease for a time to regain health and strength; and in Sedgehill Church she put up a beautiful east window to the memory of Maria Farringdon, and for a sign-post to all such pilgrims as were in need of one, as the east window in St.Peter's had once been a sign-post to herself showing her the way to Zion.
In all these undertakings Christopher was her right hand; and while Elisabeth planned and paid for them, he carefully carried them out--the hardest part of the business, and the least effective one.
When Elisabeth had set afoot all these improvements for the benefit of her work-people, she turned her attention to the improving of herself; and she informed Christopher that she had decided to go up to London, and fulfil the desire of her heart by studying art at the Slade School.
"But you can not live by yourself in London," Christopher objected; "you are all right here, because you have the Tremaines and other people to look after you; but in town you would be terribly lonely; and, besides, I don't approve of girls living in London by themselves." "I sha'n't be by myself.

There is a house where some of the Slade pupils live together, and I shall go there for every term, and come down here for the vacation.