"Yes," said Elizabeth. She did not admire anything about the Rev. Johnston Christie, least of all his business head. He was a large pompous man, with a booming voice and a hearty manner, and he had what is known in clerical circles as a "suburban charge." Every Sunday the well-dressed, well-fed congregation culled from villadom to which he ministered filled the handsome new church, and Mr. Christie's heart grew large within him as he looked at it. He was a poor preacher but an excellent organiser: he ran a church as he would have run a grocery establishment. His son Archie was exactly like him, but Christina had something of her mother, a deprecating little woman with feeble health and a sense of humour whom Elizabeth called Chuchundra after the musk-rat in the _Jungle Book_ that could never summon up courage to run into the middle of the room. "Yes," said Elizabeth, "I foresee a brilliant future for Archie, full of money and motor-cars and knighthoods." "Oh! I don't know," said Christina, "but I think he has the knack of making money. How are your brothers?" "Both well, I'm glad to say. Walter has got a new job--in the Secretariat--and finds it vastly entertaining. Alan seems keener about polo than anything else, but he's only a boy after all." "You talk as if you were fifty at least." "I'm getting on," said Elizabeth. "Twenty-eight is a fairly ripe age, don't you think?" "No, I don't," said Christina somewhat shortly. Christina was thirty-five. "Buff asked me yesterday if I remembered Mary Queen of Scots," went on Elizabeth, "and he alluded to me in conversation with Thomas as 'my elderly nasty sister.'" "Cheeky little thing!" said Christina. "You spoil that child." Elizabeth laughed, and by way of turning the conversation asked Christina's advice as to what would sell best at coming bazaars. At all bazaar work Christina was an expert, and she had so many valuable hints to give that long before she had come to an end of them Elizabeth was hauled away to play "Yellow Dog Dingo." Christina had little liking for children, and it was with unconcealed horror that she watched her friend bounding from _Little God Nqu_ (Billy) to _Middle God Nquing_ (Buff), then to _Big God Nquong_ (Thomas), begging to be made different from all other animals, and wonderfully popular by five o'clock in the afternoon. It was rather an exhausting game and necessitated much shouting and rushing up and down stairs, and after everyone had had a chance of playing in the title rôle, Elizabeth sank breathless, flushed and dishevelled, into a chair. "Well, I _must_ say----" said Christina. "Come on again," shouted Billy, while Thomas and Buff loped up and down the room. "No--no," panted Elizabeth, "you're far too hot as it is. What will 'Mamma' say if you go home looking like Red Indians?" Mr. Seton, quite undisturbed by the noise, had been engrossed in the poetry book, but now he laid it down and looked at his watch. "I must be going," he said.