Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: Cover art] [Illustration: "They made merry for the benefit of Uncle Stephen"] [Illustration: Title page] *Brotherly House* *by Grace S. Richmond* Frontispiece by Thomas J. Fogarty _A. L. Burt Company_ _Publishers New York_ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN Copyright 1912 Doubleday Page & Co. [Illustration: Copyright notice] [Illustration: Headpiece] [Illustration: Page 3] *Brotherly House* *A Christmas Story* "It seems to me," said Mr. Stephen Kingsley thoughtfully to himself, as he laid down his younger brother Samuel’s letter, "that it would be a very good thing to get Sam and Sylvester together. Judging by this letter—and one I had not long ago from Syl—it must be some three or four years since they’ve met—voluntarily. And that is too long—altogether too long—for brothers to remain in relations—er—lacking harmony." He perused the letter again. As he had observed, its general tenor certainly did suggest that the relations between Samuel and Sylvester lacked harmony, and that that was a very mild putting of the case. Samuel’s terse phrases left the situation in no doubt whatever. "I don’t like to say it to you, Stephen," the letter ran in one portion, "but Sylvester has acted not only unfairly, but contemptibly. I could have forgiven him the act itself, but the manner of the act—never. It was done too deliberately, too designedly, to be overlooked. I shall not overlook it. I shall——" etc. In short, the letter had not been pleasant reading. The white-haired brother who read it, lying back among his invalid’s pillows, with a wry little twist of pain about his gentle lips as his eyes laboriously followed Samuel’s vigorous scrawls and equally vigorous language, felt it to be a matter in which it was time to interfere. Men and brothers of the age of Samuel and Sylvester—neither would see forty-five years again—should not be allowed to feel in this way toward each other if their elder brother could help it. "He ’doesn’t like to say it,’" commented Stephen Kingsley with mild irony, "yet he seems to say it with considerable relish, nevertheless. The question is—what can I do?"