id that another character was not to be acted by any
of them, or, indeed, mentioned; "the little one who comes in at the
end," Robin explained. Mamma had her reasons, and these were always
good. She had not been altogether pleased that Robin had bought the
play. It was a very old thing, she said, and very queer; not adapted for
a child's play.

If mamma thought the parts not quite fit for the children to learn, they
found them much too long; so, in the end, she picked out some bits for
each, which they learned easily, and which, with a good deal of
fighting, made quite as good a story of it as if they had done the
whole. What may have been wanting otherwise was made up for by the
dresses, which were charming.

Robin was St. George, Nicholas the Valiant Slasher, Dora the Doctor, and
the other two Hector and the King of Egypt. "And now we've no Black
Prince!" cried Robin, in dismay.

"Let Darkie be the Black Prince," said Nicholas. "When you have your
stick he'll jump for it, and then you can pretend to fight with him."

"It's not a stick, it's a sword," said Robin "However, Darkie may be the
Black Prince."

"And what's Pax to be?" asked Dora; "for you know he will come if Darkie
does, and he'll run in before everybody else, too."

"Then he must be the Fool," said Robin; "and it will do very well, for
the Fool comes in before the rest, and Pax can have his red coat on, and
the collar with the little bells."

VI.

Robin thought that Christmas would never come. To the Captain and his
wife it seemed to come too fast. They had hoped it might bring
reconciliation with the old man, but it seemed they had hoped in vain.

There were times, now, when the Captain almost regretted the old
bachelor's bequest. The familiar scenes of her old home sharpened his
wife's grief. To see her father every Sunday in church, with marks of
age and infirmity upon him, but with not a look of tenderness for his
only child, this tried her sorely.

"She felt it less abroad," thought the Captain. "An English home, in
which she frets herself to death, is, after all, no great boon."

Christmas Eve came.

"I'm sure it's quite Christmas enough, now," said Robin. "We'll have
'The Peace Egg' to-night."

So, as the Captain and his wife sat sadly over their fire, the door
opened, and Pax ran in, shaking his bells, and followed by the nursery
mummers. The performance was most successful. It was by no means
pathetic, and yet, as has been said,