"You are in town on business, of course," she went on, more for the sake of saying something, than because she felt the slightest grain of interest in the affairs of her husband's elderly cousin. "I must bring Baba to see Cousin Ellen before we go to Bramwell. Baba is the duckiest wee thing in the world--in my prejudiced opinion--and I believe Cousin Ellen will like her." Sir Arthur disliked all modern terms of endearment. He looked frigidly at Cicely; and wondered, not for the first time, what his sensible and sober-minded cousin, John Redesdale, could possibly have seen to admire, in this frivolous creature who was now his widow. "I am not surprised poor John died," Sir Arthur reflected; "such flightiness, such flippancy, must have grated on him terribly." It was not given to Sir Arthur to understand his fellow-men, much less his fellow-women; and it is doubtful whether he would have believed John Redesdale himself, if that dear and noble man had risen from the dead, to assure his cousin of his passionate and unswerving devotion to Cicely, his much-loved wife. "Dear Ellen will be very pleased to see your little girl," Sir Arthur said stiffly, after that swift moment of thought. "You know we always call her Veronica. We disapprove of pet names, and Veronica is a valued name in our family." The vexed question of Baba's style and title, being one that recurred on every occasion when Cicely and Sir Arthur met, the little lady made a hasty change of subject, saying brightly: "I will bring her one day. You know she was ill at Graystone. She gave me a terrible fright, but she is quite well again, and I think we owe a great deal to Christina, Baba's delightful nurse--a lady, a most dear and charming girl, who is as much of a companion for me, as for her own special charge." "A lady? A lady nurse? I hope you are wise in this, my dear Cicely; it is rather an innovation, a departure from the good old ways. Now, I have a theory that a middle-aged nurse of the very respectable, old-fashioned type, is the best sort of person to be about a child." "If only one could dig her out of anywhere," Cicely answered with her bright smile; "but she is so scarce nowadays, as to be practically prehistoric. I have had every variety of nurse, and they seemed to me to oscillate between minxes and humbugs, until I found Christina." "And with this young woman you no doubt had excellent references?" said Sir Arthur, fixing a piercing glance upon his companion; "too much care could not be exercised about the person who has charge of your little girl." Cicely gave what she afterwards explained to herself as a mental gasp, but she was mistress of the situation. She looked into Sir Arthur's severe face, with a smile upon her own, and said smoothly--