“You’ve never even heard the expression? I should think that a great compliment to our time if it weren’t that I fear it may have been only the name that has been kept from you.” The light of ignorance in the child’s smile was positively golden. “The name?” she again echoed. She understood too little--he gave it up. “And who are all the other best friends whom poor Nanda comes after?” “Well, there’s my aunt, and Miss Merriman, and Gelsomina, and Dr. Beltram.” “And who, please, is Miss Merriman?” “She’s my governess, don’t you know?--but such a deliciously easy governess.” “That, I suppose, is because she has such a deliciously easy pupil. And who is Gelsomina?” Mr. Longdon enquired. “She’s my old nurse--my old maid.” “I see. Well, one must always be kind to old maids. But who’s Dr. Beltram?” “Oh the most intimate friend of all. We tell him everything.” There was for Mr. Longdon in this, with a slight incertitude, an effect of drollery. “Your little troubles?” “Ah they’re not always so little! And he takes them all away.” “Always?--on the spot?” “Sooner or later,” said little Aggie with serenity. “But why not?” “Why not indeed?” he laughed. “It must be very plain sailing.” Decidedly she was, as Nanda had said, an angel, and there was a wonder in her possession on this footing of one of the most expressive little faces that even her expressive race had ever shown him. Formed to express everything, it scarce expressed as yet even a consciousness. All the elements of play were in it, but they had nothing to play with. It was a rest moreover, after so much that he had lately been through, to be with a person for whom questions were so simple. “But he sounds all the same like the kind of doctor whom, as soon as one hears of him, one wants to send for.” The young girl had at this a small light of confusion. “Oh I don’t mean he’s a doctor for medicine. He’s a clergyman--and my aunt says he’s a saint. I don’t think you’ve many in England,” little Aggie continued to explain. “Many saints? I’m afraid not. Your aunt’s very happy to know one. We should call Dr. Beltram in England a priest.” “Oh but he’s English. And he knows everything we do--and everything we think.” “‘We’--your aunt, your governess and your nurse? What a varied wealth of knowledge!” “Ah Miss Merriman and Gelsomina tell him only what they like.” “And do you and the Duchess tell him what you DON’T like?” “Oh often--but we always like HIM--no matter what we tell him. And we know that just the same he always likes us.” “I see then of course,” said Mr. Longdon, very gravely now, “what a friend he must be. So it’s after all this,” he continued in a moment, “that Nanda comes in?”