"Your nurse is one of the coddling sort, I can see! Now, I've been brought up in the fresh air, and I shall try if I can't make you as hardy as myself. I shall see that you're not kept in a glass case any longer. Now, aren't you pleased to see me? Dear me! I wish Puggy was here!"
Christina looked up into the laughing girlish face bent over her. Her stepmother was in a short tweed coat and skirt, and looked like an overgrown schoolgirl. Her hair, which was a pretty golden-brown, was drawn back from a decidedly fresh attractive face. Rosy cheeks, blue eyes and a mouth that was never anything but smiling, completed the picture. Christina's fears disappeared at once.
"Yes," she said smiling in return. "I think I shall like you to be my mother."
"You queer little soul! I can tell you I didn't like the idea of a stepdaughter at all, but I was told that I should have no bother, for your nurse had you entirely in her charge. And I love children if they're no bother—ah, here is your nurse!"
She turned to meet Nurse's look of horror at the open window.
"No, don't shut it, Nurse; you have this room ever so much too warm. Look at this child's pale cheeks!"
"Miss Christina has a cold, and is very delicate ma'am. You must excuse me if I act contrary to your wishes!"
Nurse banged down the wide window sash with no very gentle hand.
Christina's young stepmother laughed in her face.
"You are a foolish woman," she said; "not fit to have the charge of a child!"