horns and a tail."

The old man's stern face relaxed into a broad smile as he examined the
grotesque wood-cut; but, when he turned to the first page, the smile
vanished in a deep frown, and his eyes shone like hot coals, with
anger. He had seen Robin's name.

"Who sent you here?" he asked, in a hoarse voice. "Speak, and speak the
truth! Did your mother send you here?"

Robin thought the old man was angry with them for playing truant. He
said slowly, "N--no. She didn't exactly send us; but I don't think
she'll mind our having come if we get back in time for supper. Mamma
never forbid our going mumming, you know."

"I don't suppose she ever thought of it," Nicholas said, candidly,
wagging his curly head from side to side.

"She knows we're mummers," said Robin, "for she helped us. When we were
abroad, you know, she used to tell us about the mummers acting at
Christmas when she was a little girl. And so we acted to papa and mamma,
and so we thought we'd act to the maids, but they were cleaning the
passages, and so we thought we'd really go mumming; and we've got
several other houses to go to before supper-time. We'd better begin, I
think," said Robin, and without more ado he began to march round and
round, raising his sword and shouting,--

"I am St. George, who from Old England sprung,
My famous name throughout the world hath rung."

And the performance went off quite as creditably as before.

As the children acted, the old man's anger wore off. He watched them
with an interest he could not repress. When Nicholas took some hard
thwacks from St. George without flinching, the old man clapped his
hands; and, after the encounter between St. George and the Black Prince,
he said he would not have the dogs excluded on any consideration. It was
just at the end, when they were all marching round and round, holding on
by each other's swords "over the shoulder," and singing "A mumming we
will go, etc.," that Nicholas suddenly brought the circle to a
stand-still by stopping dead short and staring up at the wall before
him.

"What are you stopping for?" said St. George, turning indignantly round.

"Look there!" cried Nicholas, pointing to a little painting which hung
above the old man's head.

Robin looked, and said, abruptly, "It's Dora."

"Which is Dora?" asked the old man, in a strange, sharp tone.

"Here she is," said Robin and Nicholas in one breath, as they dragged
her forward.

"She's the Doctor," sa