'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 muff 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.

'You always think people are nicer than they are, don't you?' observed
her brother, with gentle scorn. 'When we had that beast of a housekeeper
who used to smack you and Robin, you always said her Sunday bonnet was
beautiful, or something like that.'

'Oh, Kit!' was all Barbara felt capable of replying, and the boy rattled
on heedlessly.

'That Doctor is the rottenest of rotters,' he declared