Part 31 (1/2)

'How are you, Kit?' asked Babs, after a little further reflection.

'I'm all right, thanks,' answered Christopher, faithfully, and he whistled a tune to fill the next pause. 'Awfully poor lying here, isn't it?' he resumed presently.

Barbara nodded. 'It's stale,' she said expressively.

Kit looked sympathetic. 'It would make _me_ sick,' he observed.

'Oh, it's all right,' Barbara hastened to a.s.sure him; and he whistled a little more.

'Jill's all right too, isn't she?' he continued after a while.

'Oh, Jill's all right--_rather_,' said the child, warmly. 'How are the other boys, Kit?'

'They're all right,' answered Kit.

'And Auntie Anna?'

'She's _all_ right,' answered Kit.

Conversation again languished slightly. Barbara's eyes, wandering round the room in search of inspiration, fell on the little bag of sweets that the Doctor had brought her.

'Have a sweet,' she suggested, pointing to the table by the window.

Christopher slipped off the bed with alacrity. 'It's awfully decent of you,' he observed. 'Sure you don't want them all?'

'Oh, no; take the whole jolly lot,' begged his sister.

Kit's countenance fell slightly when he peered into the bag. 'Acid drops,'

he commented briefly, and put a couple critically into his mouth. 'Who brought them?'

'Dr. Hurst. He said they were wholesome,' replied Babs, by way of explanation. She did not want Kit to think she had been such a m.u.f.f as to choose acid drops in preference to chocolate.

'That's just about what he would say,' remarked the boy, putting several more of them into his mouth.

'I--I think he's all right, Kit,' said Barbara, timidly.

Christopher shook his head vigorously. It was the only form of reply possible to him at the moment.

'He's a rotter,' he said, as soon as he could speak; 'and so slack, too!'

He peered again into the paper bag. 'Is it worth while?' he murmured to himself, and decided that it was not. 'Pity it wasn't some one else who got them for you,' he added with a sigh, as he returned to the bed.

'He isn't bad, _really_, Kit,' persisted the child, looking troubled.

'Not bad? Why, he's an awful old soft, Babe,' answered Kit, contemptuously. 'If you were a boy, you'd know.'

'He isn't old, anyhow. He's only twenty-eight; I asked him,' said Babs, eagerly.

'Oh, rats!' laughed Kit, who had quite got over his awkwardness by this time, and was rapidly forgetting that she was an invalid and that he had been told not to tease her. 'He may be twenty-eight perhaps, if you just count his birthdays, but he's as old as the hills for all that. He was born grown-up; that sort of chap always is.'

'He's been awfully kind to me, Kit,' persisted the child, her troubled look returning.