"Baba will call Christina just 'zactly what she likes," the child answered sturdily, enunciating her words with the clearness often found in an only child who is constantly with grown-up people. "Christina's a very pretty lady, and Baba loves her." "Baba's a goose, and we must put on our things and go out in the sunshine and see what we can find in these nice lanes." She put the child off her lap, and, going into an adjacent room, brought out the red cloak in which she had first seen her, and wrapped it round Baba's graceful little form, drawing the hood over the golden curls. Barely a fortnight had gone by since Christina had first entered Lady Cicely's service, after an interview which had ended precisely as Rupert had laughingly declared it would end, in the engagement of Christina as Baba's nurse. The references the girl had produced from her late employer, Mrs. Donaldson, from an old clergyman who had known her in Devonshire, and from her father's solicitor, had seemed to Cicely to justify her in taking this step, even though the Donaldsons were in Canada, the old clergyman dead, and the solicitor gone to South Africa. "She looks genuine; I am sure she _is_ genuine," the little lady said afterwards to Rupert; "and she was so overwhelmed with delight and gratitude at the idea of coming to us." "No doubt she was," Rupert responded drily; "well! no great harm can come of giving her a month's trial. I am glad you had the saving grace to suggest that. And during the month you will be able to see what she is made of." But the month had not fallen out quite as Rupert had naturally supposed that it would. Lady Cicely, driven nearly distracted by a scare of scarlet fever in the near neighbourhood, and unable to use Bramwell Castle, which was in the builder's hands, had sent Christina and Baba off, almost at a moment's notice, to Graystone. In this remote hamlet on a remote Sussex border, Mrs. Nairne, an old servant of the Staynes family, owned a small farmhouse, and also received lodgers; and here, for the past ten days, Christina and her little charge had been rejoicing in the country sights and sounds, which even in early December had a fascination all their own.