I've got some feathers to offer up from the fowl cook is plucking; and they make a much better sacrifice than waste paper." "Why ?" Christopher was too shy in those days to put the fact into words; nevertheless, the fact remained that Elisabeth interested him profoundly.

She was so original, so unexpected, that she was continually providing him with fresh food for thought.

Although he was cleverer at lessons than she was, she was by far the cleverer at play; and though he had the finer character, hers was the stronger personality.

It was because Elisabeth was so much to him that he now and then worried her easy-going conscience with his strictures; for, to do him justice, the boy was no prig, and would never have dreamed of preaching to anybody except her.

But it must be remembered that Christopher had never heard of such things as spiritual evolutions and streams of tendency: to him right or wrong meant heaven or hell--neither more nor less; and he was overpowered by a burning anxiety that Elisabeth should eventually go to heaven, partly for her own sake, and partly (since human love is stronger than dogmas and doctrines) because a heaven, uncheered by the presence of 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.