“Poor little thing,” said Babie, “she is sadly fretful.  Nobody but Essie can manage her.”

“I should think not!” said Cecil, looking after the vision, as if he did not know what he was saying.  “You never told me you had any one like that in the family?”

“O yes; there are two of them, as much alike as two peas.”

“What! the Monk’s sisters?”

“To be sure.  They are a comely family; all but poor little Lina.”

“Will they be long here ?”

“That depends.  That poor little mite is the youngest but one, and the nurse likes boys best.  So she peaked and pined, and was bullied by Edmund above and Harry below, and was always in trouble.  Nobody but Johnny and Essie ever had a good word for her.  This autumn it came to a crisis.  You know we had a great meeting of the two families at Walmer, and there, the shock of bathing nearly took out of her all the little life there was.  I believe she would have gone into fits if mother had not heard her screams, and dashed on the nurse like a vindictive mermaid, and then made uncle Robert believe her.  My aunt trusts the nurse, you must know, and lets her ride rough-shod over every one in the nursery.  The poor little thing was always whining and fretting whenever she was not in Essie’s arms or the Monk’s, till the Monk declared she had a spine, and he and mother gave uncle and aunt no peace till they brought her here for advice, and sure enough her poor little spine is all wrong, and will never be good for anything without a regular course of watching and treatment.  So we have her here with Essie to look after her for as long as Sir Edward Fane wants to keep her under him, and you can’t think what a nice little mortal she turns out to be now she is rescued from nurse and those little ruffians of brothers.”

“That’s first-rate,” remarked Cecil.

“The eucharis and maiden-hair, is it not?  I must keep some sprays for our hairs to-night.”

“Is any one coming to-night?”

“The promiscuous herd.  Oh, didn’t you know?  Our Johns told mother it would be no end of kindness to let them bring in a sprinkling of their fellow-students-—poor lads that live poked up in lodgings, and never see a lady or any civilisation all through the term.  So she took to having them on Thursday once a fortnight, and Dr. Medlicott was perfectly delighted, and said she could not do a better work; and it is such fun!  We don’t have them unmitigated, we get other people to enliven them.  The Actons are coming, and I hope Mr. Esdale is coming to-night to show us his photographs of the lost cities in Central America.  You’ll stay, won’t you?”

“If Mrs. Brownlow will let me.  I hope your toasting-fork woman has not spirited her away?”

“Under the eyes of your horse and man.”

“Are you all at home?  And has Allen finished his novel?”

Babie laughed, and said—-

“Poor Ali!  You see there comes a fresh blight whenever it begins to bud.”