He bowed and sat down, white and perspiring at every pore, and hardly knowing to what he had committed himself. The cheers were now a roar which went echoing out into the night, and were heard nearly as far as the village on the beach, the people wondering more and more at his generosity, and sudden interest in their little ones. And no one wondered more than himself. He did not care a picayune for children, nor whether their feet touched the floor or not, and he had not intended pledging himself to build the house when he began. But as he talked, the palmetto clearing stared him in the face, shutting out everything from his vision, except a long seat directly in front of him, on which several little girls whose feet could not touch the ground were fast asleep, their heads falling over upon each other, and the last one resting upon the arm of the settee. It was a pretty picture, and stirred in him feelings he had never experienced before. He would do something for the children, expiatory, he said to himself, as he sat down, thinking he ought to be the proudest and happiest of men to have the town called for him, and to stand so high in the esteem of his fellow citizens. What would they say if they knew what he did, and how cowardly he was because of his pride. Sometime they must know. It could not be otherwise, but he would put off the evil day as long as he could, and when, at last, his guests began to leave, and he went down to bid them good-night, his head was high with that air of patronage and superiority natural to him, and which the people tolerated because he was Col. Crompton. That night he had a chill--the result of so much excitement to which he was not accustomed, he said to Peter, who brought him a hot-water bag and an extra blanket, and would like to have suggested his favorite remedies, quinine and cholagogue, but experience had taught him wisdom, and putting down the hot-water bag and blanket, he left the room with a casual remark about the fine day, and how well everything had passed off, "only a few men a little boozy," he said, "and three or four children with bruised heads caused by a fall from a swing."