"Quite within a motor drive; and he was so very good to Baba, I should like to ask him to come if he will. Rupert writes, that, as he feared, he cannot be with us. He has had to start off post haste to Naples. That tiresome boy, Jack Layton, a mutual cousin of Rupert's and mine, has gone and got typhoid there, and of course Rupert, being a sort of unattached, universal fairy godfather, has been sent for to look after him." "Is Mr. Mernside a fairy godfather?" Christina smiled at the quaint nomenclature. "I always think so. He is ready to do any thing for any of his aggravating relations, at any moment, and as Jack has selected this particular moment to get typhoid, Rupert will be away for Christmas. I wonder whether Dr. Fergusson would think it very odd and unconventional, if I invited him here, on our rather short acquaintance?" Cicely looked thoughtfully across her pretty room at Christina, and the girl laughed, and shook her head. "He is not so silly," she answered. "Dr. Fergusson is just one of those simple, straightforward men who take things as they are meant, and don't hunt round for ulterior motives. He won't even begin to think whether your invitation is conventional or unconventional, he will only think how good it is of you to ask him at all." "How wise you are," Lady Cicely exclaimed; "where does that little dark head of yours get all its wisdom?" Christina laughed again. In those days of her happy life with Baba and Baba's mother, her bright young laugh rang out very often--the laugh that seemed such a true index to her young, bright soul. She had put behind her all the misery and hardship of the past, and, with the wholesome philosophy natural to her, lived in the full enjoyment of her present content; and the few weeks of happiness, good food, and freedom from anxiety, had changed the white-faced, hollow-eyed girl who had perforce tried to pawn her mother's jewel, into a charming, and very pretty semblance of her former self. "I am not wise," she said; "only I have had a good many rough times, and I have learnt to do what one of my landladies called, 'sizing up men and women.' I have had to size people up, and try to get a just estimate of them." "And you have 'sized up' Dr. Fergusson?" "I have found out that he is the very soul of simplicity and straightforwardness, and that he is so kind that there is nothing he would not do for his fellow creatures," she answered eagerly; "and as for worrying about the conventional, I am sure it never enters his head to do such a thing." It flashed across Cicely's mind to wonder whether Christina's praise of the doctor rose from any warmer feeling than that of friendly gratitude, but the girl's eyes met hers so frankly, her manner was so simple, and the very outspokenness of her enthusiasm, seemed to point to such a heart-whole condition, that the brief thought was dismissed.