On the other hand, obedience to the doctor would involve considerable personal expenditure, not to mention the engaging of an assistant. When M. Tod had reckoned up the remnants of her savings and estimated her financial position generally, she incontinently groaned. Nevertheless, she presently proceeded to prepare a two-line advertisement for the _Evening Express_. She was still in the throes of composition――endeavouring to say in twenty words what she thought in two hundred――when Mr. Baldwin, traveller for a firm of fancy-goods merchants, entered the shop. Acquainted with his kindly manner in the past, she ventured to confide to him her present difficulties. Mr. Baldwin was not only sympathetic but helpful. “Why,” said he, “my niece Christina might suit you――in fact, I’m sure she would. She is nearly sixteen, and only yesterday finished a full course of book-keeping. More than that, Miss Tod, she has had experience in the trade. Her aunt before her marriage to――er――myself――had a little business like your own, at the coast. I had thought of getting Christina a situation in the wholesale, but I believe it would be better for her to be here, for a time at least. I know she is keen on a place where she can have her own way――I mean to say, have room to carry out her own ideas.” Mr. Baldwin halted in some confusion, but speedily recovered. “Anyway,” he went on, “give her a trial. Let me send her along to see you this evening.” M. Tod assented, possibly because she feared to hurt the traveller’s feelings. “Nearly sixteen” and “keen on a place where she can have her own way” did not sound precisely reassuring to the old woman who had no experience of young folk, and who had been her own mistress for so long. That evening Christina came, saw and, after a little hesitation, conquered her doubts as to the suitability of the situation. “I’ll manage her easy,” she said to herself while attending with the utmost demureness to M. Tod’s recital of the duties required of her assistant――“I’ll manage her easy.” Within six months she had made good her unuttered words. * * * * * It was Saturday afternoon. M. Tod was about to leave the shop for an airing. Time takes back no wrinkles, yet M. Tod seemed younger than a year ago. She had lost the withered, yellowed complexion of those who worship continually in the Temple of Tannin; her movements were freer; her voice no longer fell at the end of every sentence on a note of hopelessness. Though she had grown some months older, she had become years less aged. She glanced round her shop with an air of pride. From behind the counter Christina, with a kindly, faintly amused smile, watched her. “Ay,” remarked M. Tod, “everything looks vera nice――vera nice, indeed, dearie. I can see ye’ve done yer best to follow ma instructions.”