The day was a happy one. Mr. Horatio Marcy and Mrs. Dingley arrived on the morning train and stayed until evening. At the Christmas dinner Judith and Wayne Carey and Dr. Roger Barnes were the additional guests, and Mary McKaim was in the kitchen. Dinner over, everybody sat about the fireplace talking, when Juliet came in to carry little Tony off to bed. "Five minutes more," begged Dr. Barnes, on whose knee the child sat, a willing captive to the arts of his entertainer. His eyes, bright with the excitement of this great day, were fixed upon the doctor's face. "And so"--Barnes continued the story he had begun--"the rooster climbed right up the man's leg"--the toy obeyed his command and scaled the eminence from the floor where it had been hiding behind a Noah's ark--"and perched on his knee, and cried"--the rooster crowed lustily and little Tony laughed ecstatically. "Then the rooster flew up on the man's shoulder and flapped his wings, and all at once he fell right over backwards and tumbled on his head on the floor.--Got to go to bed, Tony? Shall the rooster go too? All right. May I carry him up for you, Juliet? Anthony's deep in that discussion. Get on my back, old man--that's the way!" Everybody looked after the two as the doctor mounted the stairs. "That rooster has captivated the child more than all the mechanical toys he has had to-day," said Mrs. Dingley. "What a handsome fellow he is," said Carey, his eyes following little Tony till he disappeared. "I never saw a healthier, happier child. How sturdy he is on his legs--have you noticed? He's saying a good many words, too. It was as good as a play to see him imitate that rooster." Juliet's father and Mrs. Dingley left on an early evening train, and only the three younger guests remained when Juliet came downstairs after putting her boy to bed. She set about gathering up the toys scattered over the floor, and Barnes helped her. In the midst of this labour, during which they all made merry with some of the more elaborate mechanical affairs, Juliet suddenly said "What's that?" and went to the bottom of the stairs. "Let me go," offered Anthony. "He's probably too excited to get to sleep easily after all this dissipation.--Hullo!--he's crowing with the rooster yet." But Juliet went up, and he followed her, saying from the landing to his guests, "Excuse me for a little. I'll get the boy quiet, and let his mother come down. I've a fine talent for that sort of thing. That rooster will have to be given some soothing syrup--he's too lively a fowl." "I never saw a man fonder of his youngster than Tony," Carey observed. "The child is a particularly fine specimen," the doctor said. "I think I never saw a more ideal development than he shows." He began to tell an incident in which little Tony had been involved, when he was interrupted. "Barnes!"--called Anthony's voice from the top of the stairs. "Come up here, please."