elt embarrassed. Phyllis was gazing at Akbar.

"Come over here and talk to me," she urged. "I want you to stand up
and roar."

Akbar opened one sleepy eye and then the other, lifted his splendid
head and finally after a little more coaxing stood up and stretched.

"You see he does remember me," Phyllis said triumphantly. "I knew he
would."

Tom and Janet looked at each other and winked solemnly.

Phyllis refused to leave until, with the aid of the keeper, who seemed
to be an old friend of hers, she had made Akbar roar for a large piece
of meat.

"That's the way he says please, bless his darling heart," she
explained, and the keeper nodded assent.

"The little lady has a great way with him, sir," he said to Tom. "It
do seem as though he knows her, for he'll get up and come to the front
of his cage when he won't for another living soul, but I do be always
saying that lions be rare intelligent beasts."

"My sentiments exactly," Tom agreed affably, but he hurried the girls
out into the sunshine.

"I didn't want him to tell me that Phyllis ought to have been brought
up as a lion tamer,"--he laughed--"and I could see that he was going to
with the slightest encouragement."

Phyllis was silent most of the way home, Akbar always filled her with
odd hopes, too vague to be put into words but strong enough to make her
restless. He had the same effect on her that some of the statues in
the museum had.

After luncheon they went down to meet the train that carried at least
one very excited passenger. All the way from Old Chester Boru had done
his doggish best to tell all the brakemen in the train that he was
going to his mistress at last.

He very nearly ate Janet up when he spied her down the length of the
baggage platform. As for Janet, she sat down on the floor and hugged
him until Tom bribed her to get up by offering to buy Boru some ice
cream.

It was a merry party that came back to Auntie Mogs's in a taxicab and
Boru, in his excitement, insisted upon licking even the chauffeur's ear.

Janet sat with him in her lap for the rest of the happy afternoon.

Tom's surprise party was a great success. At a little after six, he
told the girls to be ready to go out, and Auntie Mogs suggested that
they wear their prettiest frocks.

"Of course you can do as you like," she said with a twinkle in her eye,
"but I am going to wear my black lace."

"Auntie Mogs, you know what the surprise is," Phyllis accused. "Tell