Samuel opened the door of the room where he had left young Syl, his hand shaking on the knob. A somewhat feeble but decidedly cheerful voice greeted him. "Say, dad, you’ll tell me where I tumbled from, won’t you? The rest of ’em have got me stung about it." Samuel turned around to the doctor behind him. He pushed past the doctor and bolted out into the hall. He bumped smartly into his brother Sylvester, who had stopped to wait just outside the door. Sylvester put his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. "I heard, Sam, I heard," he murmured. Samuel nodded. He could not speak. There was no particular need that he should. Young Syl had a broken arm. But what is a broken arm, when by acquiring it one escapes injuring some vital part of one’s body? He had, also, a large-sized contusion on his head, because on the rebound he had come somewhat forcibly into contact with the newel-post. But the contusion was precisely on the spot specially fortified by Nature for such emergencies, and the doctors feared no evil results from it. "In short," declared Doctor Graham with great satisfaction, "the boy has managed to get out of his fall easier than many a football victim who is thrown only the distance of his own height. I won’t say that a Turkey carpet with a leopard-skin rug on top of it doesn’t make a fairly comfortable bed to fall on. If it had been one of our modern bare floors, now!—But it wasn’t." "Mayn’t I have my dinner with the rest of ’em?" begged Syl. Dinner! The Christmas dinner! They had all forgotten it except the hero of the day. "Because I’m awfully hungry," urged Syl. In the deserted hall downstairs Jim Dent happily encountered Anne. He seized her hand. "Come with me to tell Uncle Stephen!" he commanded. "But—stop crying first! Uncle Steve’s a pretty wise man, but he can’t be expected to tell the difference between tears of sorrow and tears of crazy joy—not at first sight." "I don’t know why I’m crying," sobbed Anne, breaking down completely and burying her face on the blue-serge shoulder which conveniently offered itself at the moment, just as she had done many times since she was a baby. Even when she was eight and Cousin Jim was fifteen, that shoulder of his had been one to hide one’s unhappy eyes upon. "I didn’t cry a drop—till I knew Syl was s-safe!" "I know. Queer, isn’t it? It always works that way. I confess I had some difficulty in seeing the way across the room myself, a few minutes ago. But wipe ’em away and come on! Uncle Stephen mustn’t have to wait for his news. Look up here. Smile! Here—maybe this will help——" and for the third time within twenty-four hours he stooped and kissed her. The tremulous lips broke suddenly into the smile he sued for. Through the tears shone a sudden mischievous light. "Cousin Jim," she observed, "you seem to have changed your methods a good deal. Always before it was chocolates. Are you out of chocolates?"