Chrissie shook her head.
"Not since papa carried him in," she replied.
"Would you like to see him very much?"
"Oh, may I? I'll be very, very quiet and good. I'll bathe my eyes, so that he won't find out I've been crying, and I'll only stay a minute."
"Run upstairs then and make yourself look as much as usual as you can. I will go back for a moment and tell Mrs. Ross I have given you leave to come in."
Two minutes or so later Chrissie was tapping very softly at the door of the oriel room.
"Come in," said Mr. Stern.
He was not looking at all grave now, but very "smily" and cheerful, which Chrissie was glad of, as it reminded her that she herself must not cry or seem unhappy. But how strange it all was! She would scarcely have known the pretty little sitting-room: Ferdy's bed with a screen round it standing out at one side of the curiously shaped window, her mother's writing-table and other little things gone. Chrissie could not help staring round in surprise, and perhaps because she had a nervous dread of looking at Ferdy.
He saw her, however, at once.