asing jingle of tiny
bell-notes. Kirk was cuddled close beside Ken, and woke abruptly as Ken
drew him nearer.

"You didn't take your overcoat," he whispered.

"We'll both have it, now," his brother said. "Curl up tight, old man;
it'll wrap round the two of us."

"Is it night still?" Kirk asked.

"Black night," Ken whispered; "stars at the window, and a tree swaying
across it. And in here a sort of dusky lightness--dark in the corners,
and shadows on the walls, and the fire glowing away. Phil's asleep on
the other side of the hearth, and she looks very nice. And listen--hear
the toads?"

"Is that what they are? I thought it was a fairy something. They make
nice noises! Where do they live?"

"In some marsh. They sit there and fiddle away on bramble roots and sing
about various things they like."

"What nice toads!" murmured Kirk.

"_Sh-sh!_" whispered Ken; "we're waking Phil. Good night--good morning,
I mean. Warm enough now?"

"Yes. Oh, Ken, _aren't_ we having fun?"

"Aren't we, though!" breathed his brother, pulling the end of the
Burberry over Kirk's shoulders.

* * * * *

The sun is a good thing. It clears away not only the dark shadows in the
corners of empty rooms, but also the gloom that settles in anxious
people's minds at midnight. The rising of the sun made, to be sure,
small difference to Kirk, whose mind harbored very little gloom, and was
lit principally by the spirits of those around him. Consequently, when
his brother and sister began reveling in the clear, cold dawn, Kirk
executed a joyous little _pas seul_ in the middle of the living-room
floor and set off on a tour of exploration. He returned from it with his
fingers very dusty, and a loop of cobwebs over his hair.

"It's all corners," he said, as Felicia caught him to brush him off,
"_and_ steps. Two steps down and one up, and just when you aren't
'specting it."

"You'd better go easy," Ken counseled, "until you've had a personally
conducted tour. You'll break your neck."

"I'm being careful. And I know already about this door. There's a kink
in the wall and then a hump in the floor-boards just before you get
there. It's an exciting house."

"That it is!" said Ken, reaching with a forked stick for the handle of
the galvanized iron pail which sat upon the fire. Nobody ever heard of
boiling eggs in a galvanized iron pail but that is exactly what the
Sturgises did. The pail, in an excellent state of pres