as so much
goin' on I plum forgot to tell you. You're to stay all night too, she
says."

The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burning
with a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom he
questioned could not tell.

"Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he was
ushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on the
edge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fear
she might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybe
her husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had been
too busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamities
presented themselves.

Unconsciously he held himself so rigid in his expectancy that he
fairly ached. Ten minutes dragged by, with only the crackle of the
fire on the hearth to disturb the silence of the great room.

Then light feet pattered down the stairs and ran across the broad
hall. The _portiere_ was pushed aside and a bright little face looked
in. In another instant Robin's arms were around his neck, and he was
crying over and over in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, it's Big Brother!
It's Big Brother!"

Not far away down the avenue a great church organ was rolling out its
accompaniment to a Thanksgiving anthem. Steven could not hear the
words the choir chanted, but the deep music of the organ seemed to him
to be but the echo of what was throbbing in his own heart.

There was no lack of childish voices and merry laughter in the great
house that afternoon. A spirit of thanksgiving was in the very
atmosphere. No one could see the overflowing happiness of the children
without sharing it in some degree.

More than once during dinner Mrs. Estel looked across the table at her
husband and smiled as she had not in months.

Along in the afternoon the winter sunshine tempted the children out of
doors, and they commenced to build a snow man. They tugged away at the
huge image, with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, so full of
out-breaking fun that the passers-by stopped to smile at the sight.

Mrs. Estel stood at the library window watching them. Once, when
Robin's fat little legs stumbled and sent him rolling over in the
snow, she could not help laughing at the comical sight.

It was a low, gentle laugh, but Mr. Estel heard, and, laying aside his
newspaper, joined her at the window. He had almost despaired of ever
seeing a return to the old sunny charm of face and