stern dignity; but at a warm, girlish touch he gulped.

"Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand, "we're--we're
both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas Day."

[Illustration: "Dick," he said queerly, holding out a trembling hand,
"we're--we're both citizens of the United States, and--it's Christmas
Day."]

Almost before he had finished the boy had bounded across the floor and
wrung the outstretched hand, his face radiant with delight. By the
fire Ruth cried softly and the Colonel gently patted her dark head, his
eyes full of tenderness. Then taking refuge from the sharp pain of his
emotion in austere command:

"Dick," he said sternly, "go to your mother."

When Uncle Noah, in a state of beatification impossible to describe,
summoned the four to the wonderful Christmas dinner Colonel Fairfax was
eagerly listening to the tales of Dick's success as told by Ruth, and
Dick was 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