end. The Doctor went with his host to the study on
the second floor, where, as a Christmas custom, they would drink some
Madeira, ancient of days, from a cask prescribed and furnished long since
by the doctor.

The little boy was for the moment left alone with the tiny niece; to stare
curiously, now that she was close, at one of whom he had caught glimpses
in a window of the big house next door. She was clad in a black velvet
cloak and hood, with pink satin next her face inside the hood, and she
carried a large closely-wrapped doll which she affected to think might
have taken cold. With great self-possession she doffed her cloak and
overshoes; then slowly and tenderly unwound the wrappings of the doll,
talking meanwhile in low mothering tones, and going with it to the fire
when she had it uncloaked. Of the boy who stared at her she seemed
unconscious, and he could do no more than stand timidly at a little
distance. An eye-flash from the maid may have perceived his abjectness,
for she said haughtily at length, "I'm astonished no one in this house
knows where Clytie is!"

He drew nearer by as far as he could slowly spread his feet twice.

"_I_ know--now--she went to get two glasses from the dresser to take to my
grandfather and that gentleman." He felt voluble from the mere ease of
the answer. But she affected to have heard nothing, and he was obliged to
speak again.

"Now--why, _I_ know a doll that shuts up her eyes every time she lies
down."

The doll at hand was promptly extended on the little lap and with a click
went into sudden sleep while the mother rocked it. He could have ventured
nothing more after this pricking of his inflated little speech. A moment
he stood, suffering moderately, and then would have edged cautiously away
with the air of wishing to go, only at this point, without seeming to see
him, she chirped to him quite winningly in a soft, warm little voice, and
there was free talk at once. He manfully let her tell of all her silly
little presents before talking of his own. He even listened about the
doll, whose name Santa Claus had thoughtfully painted on the box in which
she came; it was a French name, "Fragile."

Then, being come to names, they told their own. Hers, she said, was
Lillian May.

"But your uncle, now--that gentleman--he called you _Nancy_ when you came
in." He waited for her solving of this.

"Oh, Uncle Doctor doesn't know it yet, what my _real_ name is. They call
me Nancy, but