“Only an ingrate could say no, Miss Miriam,” cried Anselm Lancaster. “I’ll do my best to fulfil my part of it. I’ve an idea! Do you mind if I costume as St. Nicholas, instead of Santa Claus, and tell the boys in a few simple words who I am, what I’ve always done for children, and, in a word, what a fine thing it is to have a saint for their friend, instead of a fake? I think I can get it over to them, and it’s rather a chance to steer them toward realities. What says the great little lady? And her lieutenant?” “The great little lady highly approves, Anselm; it takes you to see chances to bolster up faith and morals incidentally to a frolic!” cried Miss Braithwaite. “And--?” hinted Mr. Lancaster, waiting for Cis. “The lieutenant?” “If I’m the great little lady’s lieutenant, she thinks it’s fine,” Cis said. “It will be good for me, too, because I don’t know much about St. Nicholas, except that somehow he stood for Santa Claus’ portrait, and it didn’t come near the original. Queer, but I never liked Santa Claus as well as other children did; he’s too fa-stout! I hated that line that told about his shaking when he trotted around! Maybe I’d have liked him better if I’d been one of a family, and a lot of us had got acquainted with him together, waiting for him to come down the chimney.” Anselm Lancaster looked pleased at this unusually long speech from Cis. Sometimes Cis wondered if he knew her story and were sorry for her. She did not mind if he knew, nor resent his possible pity. He was so simply and truly a fine gentleman that no knowledge that he possessed of another could ever seem like an intrusion. “Good! Then St. Nicholas appears, _permissu superiorum_!” he cried. “Miss Braithwaite tells me that you are to sing, Miss Adair; out of sight, impersonating an angel, probably. I didn’t know you sang.” “I don’t; I’m just going to do it,” Cis laughed. “If I impersonated an angel I’d be out of sight, that’s sure!” “In a slang sense?” suggested Mr. Lancaster. “Will you sing now what you’ll sing then to the children, please, Miss Cis!” “Oh, goodness!” sighed Cis, but she promptly arose. “All right; I will. It’s the quickest way to prove I can’t! But I can’t play; Miss Braithwaite plays it.” “Not when Anselm is here,” said Miss Braithwaite. “Play ‘The Snow Lay on the Ground’; play it in F, and harmonize it beautifully, because I intend you to play it for Cis to-morrow night.” Anselm Lancaster sat down before the dark instrument that reflected the fire and electric light in its shining case. He struck a few chords meditatively, then he went on to play the simple, lovely air over and over, surrounding it with new harmonies, varying it, not as a fantasia, but by holding to its simplicity, its lyric pathos, enriching it with all the possibilities of a choral. Cis stood listening, entranced. “Isn’t that wonderful?” she sighed. “It’s all there, and yet nothing is there till you bring it out! I love that hymn!”