It was a stormy autumn afternoon, and Phil sat in his rocking-chair before the red coal fire watching the clock upon the mantelpiece. He hoped it would strike soon and tell him what time it was, for he was expecting company, and he felt that he had already waited quite long enough.

He looked round the nursery and saw that everything was in its place, spick and span and ready for visitors, too. The big dapple gray rocking-horse stood in his corner, his fore feet impatiently lifted and an eager gleam in his brown glass eye. No doubt he was anxious to do his part by giving the visitor as many rides as she wished.

The tin kitchen, with its gay blue oven, was polished until it sparkled and glittered like precious stones. The kitchen was a favorite toy with Phil. He never tired of making strange little messes of pounded crackers and water, that smelled of the tins they were cooked in, and tasted no one but Phil could say how, for no one but he would eat them.

His big electric train, running on real tracks, a present from Great-Uncle Fred, was nicely set up in the middle of the floor, and looked as if it could take you to Jericho and return in one afternoon. Little black Pompey in a red-and-white striped minstrel suit, high hat on head, looked anxiously from the cab of the engine, for, as engineer, was he not responsible for the safety of a whole family of paper dolls who occupied an entire passenger car and who seemed not at all concerned at the delay in starting?

The nodding donkey, the dancing bear, the flannel rabbit with only one ear, stood stiffly on parade. The box of tin soldiers and sailors lay invitingly open.

Yes, everything was ready, even to the big sailboat that leaned against the wall, canvas spread to catch the first salt breeze. And best of all, there stood the low nursery table covered with a spotless white cloth, a sight which promised such a pleasant ending to what was sure to be a pleasant afternoon that Phil treated himself to a violent rocking as a way of working off his emotion.

For Phil had been ill in bed, and this was his first taste of fun in two whole weeks. He had looked forward mightily to this very moment, and his mother’s promise that he should have a party as soon as he was well had helped, more than anything else, to make the big spoonfuls of black medicine go down without a struggle.

Phil’s cheeks were white and his face was thin, and he wore for warmth his manly little blue-and-white checked bathrobe, since only last night his cough had been croupy again. Not that Phil called it his bathrobe. In admiring imitation of his father’s lounging costume he called it his “smoking-jacket,” and he had even had the daring to slip a match or two into the deep side pocket, in which he fervently hoped no one might pry. If Phil’s mother had even suspected such a thing, he and the matches would have parted company speedily, he well knew. He meant to slip them safely back as soon as the party was over, and no one would be the wiser or harmed in the least by what he had done, he thought. He smiled to himself as he fingered the forbidden objects that nestled so innocently in his pocket and gave him such a jaunty grown-up feeling.

And, in Phil’s secret heart, there was another reason why he was happy this afternoon. Gentilla had gone away.

It was not that Phil didn’t like Gentilla, for he did. He had played happily with her and Susan through the long summer days that the little girl had spent in Featherbed Lane. He had enjoyed, he thought, the long stay Gentilla had made with the Whitings when her gypsy relatives had disappeared in the night and had never been heard of from that time to this.

But at last Gentilla’s visit had come to an end. Mr. Drew knew of a Home for little children who needed some one to love and care for them. And so, one bright October day, the good minister took the little gypsy girl to her new home where she would lead an ordered, comfortable life quite different from the rough-and-tumble days she had known in gypsy van or camp.

At parting, Phil had presented Gentilla with his treasured Noah’s ark because she loved it so. He would willingly have given her his express wagon, in which he had treated her to many a ride, if his mother hadn’t explained that it would not go into Gentilla’s tiny trunk which her kind friends were filling for her with a neat little outfit. He stood upon the station platform, loyally waving his hat until the train was quite out of sight.

And it was not until then that he learned how pleasant it was to have an undivided Susan for a playmate once again, a Susan who was always glad to see him, who never whispered secrets and wouldn’t tell, who never ran away from him, and who, in short, was to be the chosen guest of honor that very afternoon.

“It must be most supper-time,” grumbled Phil. “I wish the clock would strike, or Susan would come, or something would happen.”

The clock on the mantel began a whirring and creaking that caused Phil to spring to his feet and fasten his eyes upon the little Roman soldier in helmet and shield, who stood alert, both day and night, atop the clock, ready to strike the hours as they came. The whirring grew louder. Slowly the little Roman soldier raised his arm and loudly struck his shield once, twice. Two o’clock!

“Time for Susan,” said Phil joyfully.

He dragged a low cricket to the window, and, standing upon it, looked out at the sodden brown lawn, the leafless trees rocking in a late October gale, and the gray windswept sky. Big raindrops hurried nowhere in particular down the window-pane, and Phil amused himself by racing them with his finger. And presently he spied Susan.

“Come on, come on!” he shouted, knocking on the window, quite careless of the fact that Susan couldn’t possibly hear him. “I’ve been waiting forever. Come on!”

The little figure in blue waterproof cape and hood, Susan’s pride, hurried down to the stone wall, through the gap, and across Phil’s lawn. Here was a puddle, and the blue waterproof hopped nimbly over it. Just one peep into the empty dog kennel, and Phil heard the side door shut, and knew that Susan would be there in a moment.

He waited impatiently, his eyes at the crack of the nursery door, since the cold halls were forbidden him. He heard Susan and his mother talking, and at last up she came, a box under her arm.

“See what I’ve brought,” said Susan. “Grandmother sent it. And your mother gave me some, just now, too. We will each have a long string of them.”

Susan sat down on the hearth-rug and opened the box. It was full of buttons, large and small, dull and bright, white and colored, and these she poured out in a little heap upon the floor.

“Grandmother sent a long thread for each of us,” and Susan pounced upon a small parcel at the bottom of the box. “She told me how to do it, too. You string the buttons, as many as you like, and one of them is your ‘touch button.’ You must never tell which one that is, because who ever touches that button must give you one of his. Do you see?”

“But won’t you even tell me, Susan?” asked simple Phil, who wanted to share all things with his friend, even to dark mysteries like “touch buttons.”

“Why, yes,” said Susan generously, “if you will tell me yours.”

Phil nodded and rummaged in the button heap.

“These are good ones,” said he, ranging them on the floor before him. “I’m going to begin to string.”

Phil’s taste was severe. He had chosen several large, dark, velvet buttons, a brass military button, a useful black button or two that might have come from his father’s coat, a flat silver disk as big as a dollar, and, as a lighter touch, all the buttons he could find covered with a gay tartan plaid gingham.

Susan uttered cries of delight as she rapidly made her selection.

“Look at these blue diamonds,” she exclaimed rapturously over some glass buttons that had seen better days. “And here is one with beautiful pink flowers painted on it. Here is a white fur one off my baby coat, and these little violet-and-white checks are from Grandmother’s gingham dress. I know they are.”

“Now this is the grandmother,” she went on, taking up a fat brown doorknob of a button. “I’ll put her on my string first of all, so that she can take care of the rest of them. And next I’ll put this little green velvet one so that it won’t be lonesome.”

“Which is your touch button?” asked Phil, after working busily in silence for a whole minute.

“Shh-h-h!” warned Susan, looking carefully about her before answering, as if a spy might be peeping through the keyhole or even hiding behind the one-eared rabbit. “This one. It’s my favorite, too.” And she touched a hard little rose-colored ball that looked uncommonly like a pill. “Which is yours?”

Phil proudly displayed the military button, and whirled away from Susan just in time to keep the secret from his mother who entered the room, bearing a tray.

“Are you ready for your refreshments?” she asked, setting her burden down upon the table. “Oh, let me see your button strings.”

She took both strings in her hand to look them over, and to the delight of the children she touched both of the charmed buttons.

“Touch! Touch!” they cried, capering about like wild Indians. “You touched the ‘touch button.’ You owe us one now.”

“So I do,” said Mrs. Vane, laughing. “I had forgotten all about ‘touch buttons.’ I shall be more careful after this. You won’t catch me again. Now, Phil, there are your refreshments, so draw up to the table whenever you are ready. I must go look for buttons to pay my debt!”

Mrs. Vane, still laughing, took the tray and went downstairs.

Susan and Phil found themselves ready for the refreshments and made haste to set the little table with the green-and-white china tea-set. The dinner plates were quite large enough to hold the sponge cakes, and if the tea-cups seemed a trifle small, think how many more times the brimming pitcher of lemonade would go round.

Phil set out four plates instead of two.

“We will each ask one company to come to the table,” said he. “I want the rocking-horse, he looks so thirsty, and your grandfather always stops to give Nero a drink when we go riding.”

And Phil dragged his steed over to the table, where he rocked back and forth for a moment bumping his nose against the edge of the table each time. Indeed, with his open jaws and bright red nostrils, he looked as if a whole trough of lemonade would be needed to slake his thirst.

“I’ll take the bunny because he has only one ear,” said tender-hearted Susan.

As she stooped to pick up the rabbit, she uttered a scream and sent poor bun flying half-way across the room. A small brown object, far more frightened than Susan, sped like a streak of lightning along the wall, and disappeared into the big closet where Phil kept his toys.

“What is it? What is it?” cried Phil, for Susan was jumping up and down with her hands over her ears.

“It’s on me! It’s on me!” cried Susan, shuddering and shaking. “It’s a mouse! It’s a mouse!”

“It isn’t on you,” said Phil. “Don’t cry, Susan. I saw him go in the closet. I’ll fix him, you see.”

With a bravery worthy of a better cause Phil opened the closet door, struck one of his precious matches, threw it into the closet after the mouse, and firmly shut the door.

“There now,” said he. “I fixed him.”

“What did you do?” quavered Susan, opening one eye. “Are you sure he isn’t on me? Look.”

“I killed him,” returned Phil briefly.

“How?”

“I burned him up,” answered Phil in a deep voice.

“Really?” said Susan, awed. “But won’t it set the house on fire?”

“No,” said Phil stoutly. “It won’t. I mean I don’t think it will. Maybe we had better look and see. You look, Susan.”

On the floor of the closet stood an open Jack-in-the-box, and it was upon poor Jack’s hat that the match had alighted. Jack had bushy white hair, and an equally bushy beard, and he was blazing merrily, grinning like a hero all the while, when Susan opened the door.

Susan’s heart stood still. Oh, if Mrs. Vane were only there!

“Run, Phil!” she called. “Run for your mother!”

And then with a presence of mind that, when he heard the tale, Grandfather considered remarkable, she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and emptied it over the blaze.

Phil ran screaming downstairs.

“The house is on fire and the mouse is burned up! Mamma, Mamma, come quick! The mouse is on fire and the house is burned up!”

When Mrs. Vane reached the nursery, she found the fire out, the closet floor covered with lemonade, Jack-in-the-box burned to a crisp, and Susan, with shining eyes, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but able after a moment to tell her story.

“But, child,” said Mrs. Vane, when she had made sure that the fire was completely out and that the only article damaged was the unfortunate Jack-in-the-box, “which one of you had matches, and what has become of Phil? Who had the match, Susan?”

Ah, that was the question that Phil dared not face, and that had caused him to hide himself securely behind the big sofa in the parlor where no one went in cold weather except for a special reason.

But at last he was found, and, standing before his mother, listened with drooping head to the truths his own conscience had already told him.

“I think you have found out for yourself, Phil, why a little boy should never touch matches,” said Mrs. Vane soberly. “If it hadn’t been for Susan, our house might have been burned to the ground. I’m sure I don’t know what your father would say if he were here.”

Phil’s eyes grew glassy at the very thought, but he said nothing. Indeed, there was nothing he could say in excuse.

“You have spoiled your party, and ruined your Jack-in-the-box,” went on his mother. “And, now, after hiding so long in that chilly room, you will have to go straight to bed so that you won’t take cold.”

At this Phil’s tears burst forth, and Susan was moved to pity.

“Oh, dear,” said she, with an arm about Phil’s heaving shoulders, “he will never touch the matches again, will you, Philly? Tell your mother you won’t.”

“N-n-no,” blubbered Phil dismally.

Mrs. Vane smiled down at the small sinner’s comforter.

“It seems too bad that Susan shouldn’t have her refreshments,” she remarked,—“especially since she put out the fire.”

And in a very few moments Susan was sitting on the edge of Phil’s bed, and both were drinking hot chocolate and eating the party sponge cakes.

“Hadn’t you better thank Susan for putting out the fire and saving our house from burning down?” asked Mrs. Vane, as, a little later, she helped Susan into her waterproof. She wanted to drive the lesson home, and impress upon Phil’s mind the danger they had so narrowly escaped.

“Thank you, Susan,” returned Phil obediently. “But I’m going to do something nice for you to-morrow,” he added. “I’m going to give you my ‘touch button,’ you see.”