gently patting his mother's gray hair, a halo of silver
crowning a face radiant with happiness--a Christmas quartet whose
reconciliation Uncle Noah could as yet but imperfectly comprehend.
That he had been the unconscious instrument of it all the gray-eyed
lady had already told him; but Uncle Noah, busy with numberless
culinary problems in the kitchen, had not as yet had time to ferret it
out.

At four o'clock Major Verney, who had been restrained from dashing over
to Brierwood hours before only by the necessity of soothing the ruffled
feelings of his irate mother after her long wait for a belated sleigh
on the porch of the Cotesville church, blustered in with the aggrieved
old lady upon his arm.

"We've come to supper," announced the Major. "No, Dick," as the
Colonel rose, "sit down. I know all about it, and to-night you're all
going back to Fernlands with me to celebrate the betrothal of these two
youngsters."

"It has been a day of mysteries," the Colonel said; "but will someone
please tell me what Uncle Noah was doing over at Fernlands this morning
when he was needed here?"

A silence fell over the little group. The subject was one whose
delicacy forbade the ghost of a blunder.

It was the Major who at last drew his old friend into the deep window
recess where but the night before he had watched Uncle Noah pursuing
the elusive Job, and told him the story of the faithful old negro's
Christmas Eve.

The Colonel listened intently, the snowy landscape outside growing
blurred and misty as the record of the old man's devotion gradually
unfolded. Before the Major had finished the Colonel's hand had crept
to the bell at his side, and, as the darky's shuffling footsteps echoed
along the corridor, he turned again and stared with unseeing eyes at
the outline of the old barn. Dick shifted the log and a crimson glow
irradiated the old library, making a halo of soft fire about the figure
of the old darky as he paused before his master.

"Uncle Noah," said the Colonel brokenly, "I--" but his voice failed
him, and he wrung the old man's hand in silence.

The Major bent and whispered a few swift words to the startled darky
and a great light illumined the brown face. "Doan yoh go foh to thank
me, Massa Dick," he crooned, patting the Colonel's hand with reverent
devotion; "I ain't wuth it. All I needs, sah, is jus' a good kick for
disobeyin' orders. 'Spects I doan understan' it all, but I does know,
sah, dat de lady