Fred blushed, and said it wasn't anything. The clerk in the bookstore had recommended it, and he thought Phil might like it. Phil tore off the wrapper and held up "The Gray Knight of Picardy." The sight of it sent a quick, sharp pain through her heart. It was no longer merely the best tale of the season that her father and one of her dearest friends had written, but a book her father and the woman he loved had written; and this, in the light of the day's events, was a very different matter. "Thank you, Fred. It's nice of you to think of me. And I'm sure it's a good story." "They say it's awfully funny," said Fred. Nothing seemed funny to Phil; but she exerted herself to be entertaining. She was in a mood to be touched by his gift. Charles Holton had sent her a box of roses from Indianapolis and they were nodding from the tall vase on the mantel. She saw Fred eyeing them, and hastened to say that books made the finest possible gifts. "It must be lonely in the country to-day," remarked Nan. "But I suppose you've spent the day in town." "Only part of it," replied Fred. "I couldn't desert the live stock; and I have a man there with me. We had our Christmas feast and I hopped on the interurban." "Turkey?" asked Phil. "No; rabbit. Rabbit's much more wholesome for Christmas than turkey. We sell turkeys to the city folks and feast on rabbits when we need them. I poached this one, too. But don't tell Mr. Montgomery. It ran under his fence into my pasture, and fearing it was my last chance for Christmas dinner, I pulled the trigger. Is that a high crime, Mr. Kirkwood?" "Not at all. We'll assume that it was really your rabbit that had just been out for a stroll on Mr. Montgomery's side of the fence. I'll promise to get you off if you're prosecuted." "I should think it would be quite grand and splendid to own a farm and go out and pick off game that way," said Phil musingly. "Monarch of all you survey, and that sort of thing. When I had a Flobert rifle in my enchanted youth and shot sparrows in our back yard, I had something of the same exalted feeling. Only our estate here is too limited. The neighbors kicked; so many wild shots. Absurd how sensitive people are. But I suppose if I hadn't broken a few glasses of new quince preserves the lady across our alley had put to sun in her kitchen window, I might never have lost the gun." "I don't seem to remember that incident of your career, Phil," said Rose. "I hope nobody does. The lady's husband happened to be the town marshal, and he told daddy a lot of sad things that were going to happen to me if I didn't stop shooting at his perfectly good wife as she followed her usual avocations."