"You will take cold, Thomas, standing around without your--"

"I'll just run in and see if Uncle Joe needs anything," he
interrupted, a note of anxiety in his voice. Pausing at the bedroom
door, with his hand on the knob, he turned toward her with a merry
grin on his deeply-seamed face. His sparse hair was as tousled and his
eyes as full of mischief as any child's. "Maybe it was old Santa you
heard out there, Mary--filling the stockings."

She was too matter-of-fact for anything like that. "If you knew what
was good for you, Tom Bingle, you'd fill that pair of stockings lying
at the foot of the bed instead of running around in your bare feet,"
she said, pulling the covers up about her chin. "I think I'll have my
breakfast in bed, after all."

"That's right," said he, and hurried nimbly out of the room so that
she would not hear the chattering of his teeth. Mrs. Single was
enjoying the paroxysm of a luxurious, comfortable yawn when she heard
a shout of alarm from the sitting-room. She sat straight up in bed.

"Mary! Oh, my goodness! I say, Melissa!"

Then came the pattering of Mr. Bingle's feet across the floor,
followed by the intrusion of an excited face through the half-open
door.

"Wha--what IS the matter?" she quavered.

"He--he's gone!"