Kenyon was growing into a pale, dreamy child with wonderful eyes, lustrous, deep, thoughtful and kind. He was music mad, and read all the poetry in the Nesbit library--and the Doctor loved poetry as many men love wine. Hero-tales and mythology, romances and legends Kenyon read day after day between his hours of practice, and for diversion the boy sat before the fire or in the sun of a chilly afternoon, retailing them in such language as little Lila could understand. So in the black night of sorrow that enveloped her, Laura Nesbit often spent an hour with Grant Adams, and talked of much that was near her heart. He was strong, sometimes she thought him coarse and raw. He talked the jargon of the agitator with the enthusiasm of a dervish and the vernacular of the mine and the shop and the forge. But in him she could see the fire of a mad consuming passion for humanity. During those days of shame and misery, when the old interests of life were dying in her heart, interests upon which she had built since her childhood--the interests of home, of children, of wifehood and motherhood, to which in joy she had consecrated herself, she listened often to Grant Adams. Until there came into her life slowly and feebly, and almost without her conscious realization of it, a new vision, a new hope, a new path toward usefulness that makes for the only happiness. As the Doctor went whistling into the storm that December night, he went over in his mind rather seriously the meaning and the direction and the final outcome of those small, unconscious buddings of interest in social problems that he saw putting forth in his daughter's mind. Above everything else, he was not a reformer. He hated the reformer type. But he preferred to see her interested in the work of Grant Adams--even though he considered Grant mildly cracked and felt that his growing power in the valley was dangerous--rather than to see her under the black pall that enveloped her. It was early in the evening as the Doctor went up the hill. He passed Judge Van Dorn, striding along and saw him turn into Congress Street to visit his lady love. The Judge carried a large roll of architect's plans under his arm. The Doctor nodded to the Judge, and the Judge rather proud that he was free and did not have to slink to his lady's bower, returned a gracious good evening, and his tall, straight figure went prancing down the street. When the Doctor entered his home, he found Laura and Lila sitting by the open fire. The child was in her night gown and they were discussing Santa Claus. Lila was saying: "Kenyon told me Santa Claus was your father?" Before the mother could reply the little voice went on: "I wonder if my Santa Claus will come this year--will he, mother?--Why doesn't father ever come to us, mother--why doesn't he play with me when I see him?"