The next morning Leon lay on the sofa reading, for at least the tenth time, the adventures of the immortal Tom Brown, with as deep an interest in them as he had felt when first he made the acquaintance of that hero so dear to boyish hearts. The doctor and his nephew had gone to walk up an appetite which should do honor to the dinner of state that Mrs. Flemming was superintending in the kitchen, and Gyp sat on the floor in the corner, robing the patient Mouse in the clothes of her second-best doll.

“There! Doesn’t she look pretty, Leon?” she inquired at length, triumphantly holding the cat up to his view.

The usual melancholy expression of the poor old cat was now set off by a rosy silk bonnet cocked rakishly over one eye, while her long, lank body was adorned with a green skirt, a pale blue sash and a white waist. Mouse, however, was evidently accustomed to such finery for, except for an increased droop to the corners of her mouth, there was nothing to show her disapproval of this treatment. Leon laughed, as he dropped his book by his side and, clasping his hands back of his head, he turned to watch Gyp who was holding Mouse out at arms’ length, tipping her head from side to side, as she critically eyed her pet.

“There’s one good thing about Mouse, Gyp,” he remarked lazily; “she’s a real good frame to build a cat on, if you ever want to do it.”

“I don’t know zac’ly what you mean,” said Gyp, with great severity; “but I ’most know you’re making fun of Mouse.”

She was silent for a few moments, while she added the finishing touches to the already elaborate toilet of the cat. Then she seemed to repent of her sternness, for she dropped Mouse into a chair and went across to Leon’s sofa, where she sat down on the edge of it and laid one chubby arm across the boy’s shoulders, in a comically protecting fashion. She surveyed him for a moment, puckering up her small mouth, while her roguish brown eyes grew gentle and the heavy curls drooped till they brushed his cheek. Then, as if satisfied that he was neither hurt nor angry, she went on in a wheedling tone, as she nestled closer to him,—

“I’m so sorry you hurt you, Leon. Don’t you think you’d like to tell me a story?”

“A story!” groaned Leon despairingly, for as the youngest of the family, he knew little of children. “I’m afraid I’m not much good at stories, Gyp.”

“Why not?” inquired Gyp remorselessly. “Harry is. He says he used to have to tell them to you lots of times, when you were little and cross.”

Leon blushed, in spite of himself.

“What kind of stories do you like?” he asked, willing to change the subject.

“’Most any kind,” answered Gyp, reaching up to tuck the afghan around Leon’s chin and, at the same time, slyly moving his book out of his reach. “I like those best with ever so many wild animals in them, eflunts and bears and things; but they must always be true ones, ’cause mamma doesn’t want me to learn ’bout things that aren’t so.”

“But, Gyp,” remonstrated Leon, in dismay at this literary program; “I don’t know any true stories about wild animals.”

“I should think you could make up some,” answered Gyp logically. “I make ’em up, sometimes, and I’ll tell you one, if you want, by and by, after you’ve told me yours.”

“Tell me now,” urged Leon, hoping to gain time.

“No, you must tell first, ’cause you’re company,” replied Gyp, with an uncomfortable regard for the etiquette of the occasion.

“Hm!” sighed Leon. “Let me see, what shall I tell you about? Do you know old Jerry, Gyp?”

“Who’s he?”

“The old, old man with long, white hair that comes around here, sometimes, to see if we’ll give him something to eat or some clothes.”

“Yes,” nodded Gyp. “I know him. What about him.”

“I was going to tell you how I went to see him once,” said Leon, moving to make more room for the child. “It was about two weeks ago, and Max and Jack and I started off, one Saturday, to go to his house. He lives way up beyond the village, in the woods. His house is a queer little bit of a one, made out of rough boards, with a piece of stove-pipe for a chimney, and a little narrow door, painted blue.”

“What’s that for?” inquired Gyp.

“Why, to go in at,” said Leon, rather surprised at the question.

“No; I mean what for did he paint it blue?” persisted Gyp.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Leon, with the certainty that he was about to lose favor in Gyp’s eyes, because of his lack of accurate information upon this point.

“Well,” he went on; “we knocked at this blue door, and by and by we heard a man say ‘come in,’ and we went in and there was Jerry. He sat there smoking a pipe made out of a corn cob, and mending a hole in his boot with a piece of string. There were ever so many funny things there, fish-poles and box-traps and snares—”

“What’s that?” interposed Gyp.

“Oh, things to catch birds in,” explained Leon lucidly. Then he continued, “And there were some cages on the wall, some with birds in, and some with squirrels, and one had a snake. And there was a great black crow hopping around on the floor, and three dogs, one yellow, and one white, and one black and yellow. And—and—and—” Leon hesitated.

“What did you do then?” demanded Gyp.

“We stayed a little while, and then we came home again.”

“Is that all?” asked the child, and there was a scornful ring to her tone.

“I’m afraid it is,” replied Leon meekly.

“Well, I don’t think that’s much of a story,” remarked Gyp, with a frankness of criticism which would have done credit to a professional reviewer.

“You tell me one now, Gyp,” suggested Leon, feeling that his attempt at story-telling had resulted in dismal failure.

“Well, I will,” said Gyp, with perfect readiness.

Curling up one foot under her, she turned so that she could face Leon. When she was settled to her liking, she began her tale which she emphasized now and then by nodding her head, or smacking her lips, with an air of relishing the gloomy details.

“Well, once, ever ’n ever so long ago, there was a duck and a squan, and one day they were sitting on the bank in the sun to dry their feet, and the duck said, ‘I love you; do you love me?’ and the squan said, ‘No, I won’t,’ and the duck said, ‘I’ll make you.’ So he ran at the squan, and the squan ran away and jumped into the lake. The duck ran after her and, first thing he knew, he had tumbled in, right head first over heels. They began swimming round and round after each other, and pretty soon the squan was tired, so she turned into a crocodile with great, long teeth and claw-nails, and climbed out on the bank. Then the duck turned himself into another crocodile and went out after her; but when he found her, she wasn’t there, for she made herself back into a squan and was clear off in the water. You see, she was quicker ’n he was. He didn’t stop to change, but went after her, fast as he could go, and when he came up to her, he pulled out the carving-knife and cut her into four pieces. ‘There,’ he said, ‘now I’ve killed you; that’s too bad.’ But the pieces sank down to the bottom and when they hit the mud down there, they all grew together again, so she could swim up. She came up, just as quick, and pulled the carving-knife out of his hand, and she took the carving-knife, and stuck the points in and made little dents all over him. So he died, and the squan pulled three pink feathers out of his tail, to show she’d killed him, and then she went home to her little chickens. But she forgot the carving-knife, and when she saw her chickens, she was so glad, that she dropped the carving-knife right down on top of them and cut all their heads off, and so they were dead as could be, every one of them; and when she knew they were dead and she had killed them, she felt so badly that she went right off and was drowned, and that’s all there is about them.”

“Where’d you get all this story, Gyp?” inquired Leon, much impressed by the tragic end of the tale.

“Out of my think-box,” responded Gyp, as she slipped down from the sofa and ran to the door, to meet her father and her cousin.

“Well, my boy; how goes it?” asked the doctor, as he moved up a chair and sat down beside Leon. “Has it been a long morning to you?”

“Oh, papa, we’ve had a real good time,” interrupted Gyp, climbing on his knee and taking his face between her hands, to enforce his attention. “We’ve been telling stories, and Leon has been telling me about an old man that lives alone with a black canary and smokes pop corn; and please wont you take me to see him?”

“I wasn’t talking to you, chatterbox,” said her father, laughing. “How is the foot, Leon?”

“All right—”

“Won’t you, papa?” Gyp insisted.

“Won’t I what, you monkey?”

“Won’t you take me to see the old man?”

“I tried to tell her about Jerry’s house,” explained Leon; “and she’s a little mixed up about it.”

“Nothing unusual,” answered the doctor. “Is it Jerry that you mean, Gyp?”

“Yes, I want to go to see his bird.”

“Some day, perhaps, when you are older; but it is too far for you to go now, for you would get all tired out. Now you mustn’t tease any more, but run away and play with Mouse, because I want to talk to Leon.” And as Gyp walked away, he dismissed the matter from his mind although, as it appeared later, the young lady did not.

Dr. Flemming devoted the next half hour to entertaining his guest, and their pleasant, rambling talk of Tom Brown, and the football game, and the boys, and the winter sports of the school gave Leon an even greater admiration for the doctor than he had felt before, and made him forget that he was a prisoner for some days. The doctor, on his side, was making every effort to make the time pass pleasantly, for not only did he admire the straightforward manliness of his pupil, but he was anxious to remove the memory of their recent interview in the study when, against his own will, he had been forced to punish the lad for a breach of discipline which, in the eyes of the school, was more than justified by its cause. He succeeded so well that, when Lieutenant Wilde came into the room, he found them discussing the prospect for the spring regatta with the eagerness and good-fellowship of a pair of children; and Leon was almost sorry when Mrs. Flemming appeared, a little later, to tell them that dinner was ready.

“Now, auntie,” said Lieutenant Wilde, as he rose; “as I said to you this morning, we don’t want this young man to eat his Thanksgiving dinner, in solitary state before the fire; so, with his permission, I’ll escort him to the table.” And before Leon had time to object, he was picked up bodily and carried out into the next room, where Lieutenant Wilde put him down in a chair between himself and Mrs. Flemming.

It was one of the merriest dinners that Leon had ever known, and the informality was decidedly increased by Gyp, who insisted that Mouse, in all her elegance, should come to the table and sit in a high chair by the side of her small mistress, where she was regaled on many a dainty morsel which she received and swallowed with a stolid unconcern, apparently quite unconscious of the fact that her pink bonnet had slipped off from her ear, and worked its way around until the eye on the other side was in a state of complete eclipse.

Then they went back to the parlor again, and while Mrs. Flemming drew together the heavy curtains to shut out the gathering twilight and the fine, soft snow which was beginning to fall, the doctor piled the sticks high on the andirons, and they watched the slow, curling tongues of blue flame work their way up among them, and then all at once turn to the bright red blaze which lighted all the room. To Leon, after two months in the large boarding-house, the quiet, homelike air of the place was indescribably pleasant; and he lay back in his deep chair, saying little, but watching the flickering light and listening to the conversation around him. Lieutenant Wilde sat beside him, resting one elbow on the arm of Leon’s chair. Suddenly he turned to the boy.

“Homesick or sleepy, Leon?”

“Not a bit of either,” declared Leon, laughing, “I’m as lazy and happy as Mouse herself.”

“But it will never do to spend Thanksgiving evening in this quiet fashion,” said Mrs. Flemming, starting up. “We must have lights, so we can have some games.”

“Don’t do it for me,” protested Leon. “I’m having an uncommonly good time, now.”

“It isn’t for you, any more than for the rest of us,” answered Mrs. Flemming. “We play games, the doctor and I, almost every evening that we are at home. It keeps us from getting old and stupid; and then I’m a great believer in home games, anyway. If I had twenty boys, I’d keep open house for their friends, and play games with them all, whenever they felt like it.” And she went away to see about the lights, while Lieutenant Wilde drew the card-table up to the fire, and the doctor threw on fresh wood, preparatory to settling himself for his evening game.

It was not strange that, after three or four days spent in this pleasant home, Leon almost dreaded the return to the regular hours and discipline of Old Flemming. So heartily did the doctor and his wife unite in making the boy feel at ease, that he soon forgot he was a guest, and occupied much the position of a favorite son of the house; for the family life went on in its usual course, only widening its boundaries enough to take him well inside them, cordially welcome, yet free from all constraint. The doctor himself was enough to accomplish this, now entering into games with the zest of a boy, now reading aloud interesting scraps from his evening paper, now carrying off Leon for a long, quiet talk in the study that, somehow, lost much of its threatening aspect and became a mere cosy den, under these new conditions.

On Sunday night they were comfortably established there, alone, for Gyp was in bed and Lieutenant Wilde had gone to church with his aunt, when the doctor suddenly asked,—

“Did you know Winslow wasn’t coming back after the recess, Leon?”

“No.” And Leon roused himself from his book. “What’s that for?”

“Several reasons, none of them those that you need to know. I had a long talk with him before he went, however, and he finally admitted that he was as much in the wrong as you were, in your recent trouble with him. I thought it only right to tell you this, as long as you refused to bring any charges against him. But, after all, his fault doesn’t do away with your own, and it’s only fair that you should suffer the penalty for it. Next to deceit, my strictest rules are against fighting, for if all the boys were to settle their disputes in that way, good by to the discipline of the school, and then good by to the school itself. I know it puts a boy into a hard place when he is annoyed in such a way, for of course he doesn’t want to come to me with complaints. Still, I have made the rule, and I feel that I have the right to exact obedience from my boys. If they have the honor of the place at heart, they will see the reason for it. Isn’t it so, Leon?”

And Leon gave a hearty assent.