"Lean over," she said. He did so. Very daintily, very deftly she pulled the stray wisps of cotton from his hair, so deftly, in fact, that he scarcely felt the touch of her fingers, although his whole being thrilled with the delicious sensation of contact. For years he was to remember that infinite minute and a half. He knew how pleased Samson must have been while his strength was being shorn, even though the parable says he slept. A trifle dazed by exaltation, he followed her into the library. The children who had greeted him vociferously as Santa Claus were now strangely silent and tongue-tied in the presence of a mere human,--but only for a moment. "Oh, it's Mr. Pycke!" screamed the pinkest one of them all. "I know him!" Whereupon she announced that he had come down from New York to see her sister Mary and was going to stay for dinner and play bear. "Do you mind being left alone with them for a few minutes?" asked Mary. "I must go up to father's room. He is quite helpless, you know." "I'd forgotten to ask how he's feeling to-day," he murmured contritely. The tears suddenly rushed to her eyes. A very pathetic smile and a shake of her head was the only answer he received. She left him standing there, surrounded by glad, expectant revelers, prey to a most unusual depression--as swift as it was surprising. His heart, overflowing with a new sensation of tenderness and pity, followed the slender figure up the stairs; there was but little of it left below to encourage the gleeful spirits of the care-free lads and lassies. For some unexplained reason, which he afterward sought to attribute to hysteria, he hugged the pink little Pembroke girl with unnecessary ardor, and would have kissed her older sister if he could have caught her. When Miss Pembroke came downstairs half an hour later, she found him playing bear, with tiny Miss Florence leading him about the room at the end of a long red ribbon. His hair was rumpled and his face was flushed, and it seemed that he was gasping for breath--whether from exertion or because the ribbon was choking him, she could not tell. She rescued him at once. "I like it," he cried. "It's fun to be a kiddie once more. As a matter of fact, you know, I never really had a kid's life. I'm having the time of my life." "Why, they 're wearing you out," she cried. "May I ask what you were representing?" "A bear!" shouted eleven voices. Bosworth gravely nodded. "He was going to be a trained seal, only we couldn't get a tub for him to lie on," said Mary's nine-year-old worshiper. Miss Pembroke laughed gayly. "I understood you to say last week, Mr. Van Pycke, that you were through with menagerie performances for all time." There was a witchery in her eyes that enthralled him.