"Many a time I would like to have done it; yes, many a time. I know it is wicked, but mother does interfere too much. It is her specialty!" and Christina appeared ready for another fit of laughter. "If you laugh any more, Christina, I shall feel it my duty to throw cold water in your face. Mother told me to do so." "Such advice comes from her interfering temper. That handsome fellow was right." "Behave yourself, Christina. What is the matter with you?" "It is the change, Isabel. To see lots of men in the hall, and that heavy black furniture and the poor beetles and butterflies, and the great men's pictures going away----" "Can't you speak correctly? Are you sick?" "I must be!" "Go back to bed, and I will get mother to give you a sleeping powder." "That will be better than cold water. If you could only have seen mother's face, Isabel, when that man told her not to interfere. As for him, he had a wink in his eyes, I know. I hope I shall never see him again. If I do----" "I trust you will behave decently, as Christina Campbell ought to do." "If he winks, I shall laugh. I know I shall." "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" "I am, but what good does that do?" "See here, Christina, there are going to be many changes in this house, and if you intend to meet them with this idiotic laughter, what pleasure can you expect? Be sensible, Christina." Poor Christina! The keenest of all her faculties was her sense of the ridiculous. On this side of her nature, her intellect could have been highly developed, but instead it had been ruthlessly depressed and ignored. The comic page of the newspapers, the only page she cared for, was generally removed; she could tell a funny story delightfully, but no one smiled if she did so; she saw the comical attributes of every one, and everything, but it was a grave misdemeanor to point them out; and thus snubbed and chided for the one thing she could do, she feared to attempt others which she knew only in a mediocre manner. At the dinner table she was able to take her place in a placid, sensible mood. She found the family deep in the discussion of an immediate removal to the seashore. It was at any rate about the usual time of their summer migration, and Robert was advising his mother to go to the Isle of Arran. But Mrs. Campbell had resolved to go to Campbelton, where she had many relations. "We can stay at the _Argyle Arms_," she said, "and then neither the Lairds nor the Crawfords will have the face to be dropping in for a few days' change, at my expense." Christina looked distressed, and touched Isabel's foot to excite her to rebellion. "Mother," said Isabel dolorously, "Christina and I hate Campbelton! It smells of whiskey and fish, and not even the great sea winds can make the place clean and sweet." "It makes me ill," ventured Christina. "My family have lived there for generations, Christina, and it never made them ill. They are, indeed, very robust and healthy."