and. Nor with
Beulah.

Beulah was planning a little party for the evening. There was to have
been skating, but the warmer weather and the snow had made that
impossible.

"I don't know just what I'll do with them," she said; "we might have
games."

"Anne knows a lot of things." This from Peggy, who was busy with her
bread and milk.

"What things?"

"Oh, dancing----"

Anne flushed. "Peggy!"

"But we do. We make bows like this----"

Peggy slid out of her chair and bobbed for them--a most entrancing little
curtsey, with all her curls flying.

"And the boys do this." She was quite stiff as she showed them how the
little boys bowed.

Anne seemed to feel some need of defense. "Well, they must learn
manners."

Peggy, wound up, would not be interrupted. "We dance like this," and away
she went in a mad gallop.

Anne laughed. "It warms their blood when the fire won't burn. Peggy, it
isn't quite as bad as that. Show them nicely."

So Peggy showed them some pretty steps, and then came back to her bread
and milk.

"We might dance." Beulah's mind was on her party. "But some of them don't
know how."

Anne offered no suggestions. She really might have helped if she had
cared to do it. But she did not care.

When she had finished supper, Eric followed her into the hall. "You'll
come down, won't you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Beulah would like it if you would."

"I have a lot of things to do."

"Let them go. You can always work. When you hear the fire roaring up the
chimney, you will know that it is calling to you, 'Come down, come
down!'"

He stood and watched her as she climbed the stairs. Then he went back and
helped Beulah.

Beulah was really very pretty, and to-night her cheeks were pink as she
made her little plans with him.

He gave himself pleasantly to her guidance. He moved the furniture for
her into the big front room, so that there would be a space for dancing.
And presently it became not a sanctum for staid Old Gentlemen, but a
gathering place for youth and joy.

Eric made his rounds before the company came. He looked after the dogs in
the kennels and at Daisy in her stall. He flashed his lantern into
Diogenes' dark corner and saw the old drake at rest.

The snow was whirling in a blinding storm when at last he staggered in
with a great log for the fire, and with a basket of cones to make the air
sweet. And it was as he knelt to put the cones on the fire that Anne came
in and stood beside him.