"Chris is certainly recovering," I said to Granny when I joined her in the drawing-room, and told her what had occurred. "He is quite in his usual spirits again."
"His is a happy disposition, is it not?" she said, with satisfaction. "The child is like a sunbeam in the house; so merry, so bright!"
The next morning, however, the sunbeam was comparatively still; not dancing, gay, and restless, as sunbeams often are.
The little beggar was in one of his quiet moods—moods of rare occurrence with him, as you will have gathered.
"The darling is like a lamb," Granny remarked when she came downstairs; "very gentle and so good. He wants you to go and sit with him a little, if you are not busy, my dear."
"Certainly," I said, and went up to the nursery to see Chris in this edifying rôle.
I found him busy, drawing strange hieroglyphics on a large sheet of foolscap paper with a red-lead pencil. As I entered he looked up at me for a moment with a preoccupied expression, then said mysteriously:
"Miss Beggarley, what do you think I am doing?"
"I don't know," I replied. "What is it? Let me see."
"No, no, no!" he cried, bending over the paper, "you mustn't see. I don't want you to know."