"Yes, he says she will soon be quite well," Christina repeated; "but I think I ought to remind you, that my month of probation ended last week; and--and I don't know whether you would care to let me still be Baba's nurse." Nobody knew what it cost the girl to say those apparently simple words, nor how hard it had been to resist the temptation to leave them unsaid. Lady Cicely had obviously forgotten that her new nurse had come on a month's trial only; she was taking it for granted that Christina was a permanent part of her household, and the girl shrank indescribably from any possibility of a change. And yet, conscience urged her to remind her employer of their compact for a month's probation. She instinctively felt that to drift on into being Baba's permanent nurse, would not be fair to Baba's kindly, impulsive little mother. "You don't know whether I should care to keep you on!" Cicely exclaimed, when Christina had finished her halting speech; "what absurdity! Why, the doctor told me your careful nursing helped to get my darling safely out of her nasty wood. As if I should dream of letting you go, unless you want to leave us?" she questioned hastily. "Want to leave you?" Christina's eyes dilated with the intensity of her emotion; "why--I am so happy with Baba and with you, that I couldn't bear even the very thought of going away from you. Only--I thought it was right to remind you about our agreement." "It was rather a stupid agreement," Cicely answered lightly. "I had the fear of Rupert before my eyes. I knew he was thinking me a sort of impetuous infant, for insisting on asking you to come to Baba, just because you and she got on so well together. Rupert has a very well-balanced mind. He likes things done decently and in order. I am not built on the same lines." Christina laughed. "Still, you do like decency and order," she answered. "Ah! yes," Cicely shrugged her shoulders; "but Rupert, the dear soul, is more conventional. Men always are. He likes beaten tracks, and the ways in which all our dear ancestors pottered along for countless generations. I like to make nice little new paths with my own feet, and do little new things that my great-grandmother never dreamt of doing, even in her wildest dreams." "Is Mr. Mernside so very conventional?" Christina asked, and Cicely responded quickly--