a
blushing, and she darted out of the room, and presently returned, other
footsteps following hers.

"Cray," exclaimed John, as the boy seemed inclined to linger outside,
"don't stand there in the draught. And so it is not by your virtuous
inclinations that you have hitherto been excluded from this festive
scene?"

"No, sir," said Crayshaw with farcical meekness of voice and air, "quite
the contrary. It was that I've met with a serious accident. I've been
run over."

John looked aghast. "You surely have not been into the loose-box," he
said anxiously.

"Oh no, father, nothing of the sort," said Barbara. "It was only that he
was down in the kitchen on his knees, and two blackbeetles ran over his
legs. You should never believe a word he says, father."

"But that was the reason the pudding came to grief," continued Crayshaw;
"they were very large and fierce, and in my terror I let it fall, and it
was squashed. When I saw their friends coming on to fall upon it, I was
just about to cry, 'Take it all, but spare my life!' when Barbara came
and rescued me. I hope," he went on, yet more meekly, "I hope it was not
an unholy self-love that prompted me to prefer my life to the pudding!"

The children laughed, as they generally did when Crayshaw spoke, but it
was more at his manner than at his words. And now, peace being restored,
everybody helped everybody else to the delicacies, John discreetly
refraining from any inquiry as to whether this was the first midnight
feast over which his son had presided, but he could not forbear to say,
"I suppose your grandfather's 'tip' is to blame for this?"

"If everybody was like the Grand," remarked Crayshaw, "Tennyson never
need have said--

"'Vex not thou the schoolboy's soul
With thy shabby _tip_.'"

"Now, Cray," said Brandon, "don't you emulate Valentine's abominable
trick of quoting."

"And I have often begged you two not to parody the Immortals," said
John. "The small fry you may make fun of, if you please, but let the
great alone."

"But he ithn't dead," reasoned Master Augustus John; "I don't call any
of thoth fellowth immortal till they're dead."

"It's a very bad habit," continued his father.

"And he's made me almost as bad as himself," observed Crayshaw in the
softest and mildest of tones. "Miss Christie said this very morning that
there was no bearing me, and I never did it till I knew him. I used to
be so good, everybody loved me."

John laughed, but