Christina's fingers shook with eagerness, as she drew from its tissue wrappings Lady Cicely's Christmas present to her--the simple, yet charming gown, which to her girlish eyes seemed the acme of all that was most lovely. Poor little girl, she had never seen herself in a dress cut low at the neck before, and though this gown was only cut in the most modest of squares, her own reflection in the glass told her that the rounded lines of her throat and neck were enhanced by the delicate lace that trimmed the soft silk of the gown, and that the dress itself, in its severely simple lines, suited admirably the slimness of her graceful young form. Her eyes shone like stars, there was a colour in her cheeks, and she had piled her dusky hair into a loose and becoming knot, on the top of her small, well-shaped head. "I do really believe I look very nearly pretty," she said naively, nodding to herself in the mirror. "I wish----" but she did not put her wish into words, only, as the colour deepened on her face, and she turned away from the sight of her own confusion, she found herself thinking that it was a pity Mr. Jack Layton had chosen this inopportune moment to fall ill with typhoid, and that Mr. Mernside had not been able to make one of the house party this evening. At sight of Christina, Baba, who was being prepared for bed by Janet, danced about the nursery in her pink dressing-gown, clapping her hands and chanting in a shrill monotone-- "Oh! Baba's pretty lady, Baba's pretty lady, oh!" until her nurse caught the small, soft creature in her arms, cuddling her closely and covering her laughing, rosy face with kisses. "But you _is_ Baba's pretty lady to-night," the child said solemnly, stroking Christina's neck and face with her dimpled hands. "I like you in a white frock, and when the pink colour runs up your cheeks. Put something round your neck," she went on imperiously. "Mummy's got lots of sparkle things to put round her neck, and you must have something sparkle on your pretty white neck." "Something sparkle on your pretty white neck." Why should she not, just for this once, wear the only piece of jewellery she possessed? As it was Christmas Day, and everything was more than usually festive, surely she might put on the lovely pendant her mother had given her? Christina stood still in the middle of the nursery, cogitating upon the momentous question, whilst Baba danced round her, holding the pink dressing-gown well above her pink slippered feet, and shaking her golden curls whilst she chanted again-- "Oh! Baba's pretty lady; Baba's pretty lady, oh!" "Even though I am a nurse, I am a lady, too," Christina reflected; "and Lady Cicely has given me this beautiful frock, so that I may look my best downstairs, and, my pendant would be right with the white gown. I think it wouldn't be wrong to wear it."