de work?" he queried.

"Fifty cents a day."

The negro leaned forward in tense expectancy. "Do yoh 'spect I could do it?" he demanded excitedly.

The proprietor, secretly astonished by the old man's manner, nodded assuringly. "Why, yes, you could easily; it's nothing much; but the Colonel--"

"Colonel doan have foh to know," exclaimed Uncle Noah. "I comes yere mornin's foh he's up--an I 'clare to goodness, sah, I needs de money mos' powahful."

The proprietor was easy-going and too phlegmatic to harbor curiosity. So the bargain was straightway sealed under a pledge of deepest secrecy.

Somewhat confused by the unusual series of events, Uncle Noah, his eyes shining with a strange excitement, started for the door, quite forgetting the countless packages on the counter.

The proprietor recalled him with a hearty laugh. "Uncle Noah," he called, "you've forgotten one or two little bundles here."

With a smothered gasp the old negro hurried back. But try as they would, room for all the numerous bundles could not be found. The proprietor energetically tucked bundles into all of Uncle Noah's pockets, piled them tower fashion upon his arms, and even hung a collection bound together with a string over his shoulder, while Uncle Noah wheezed and groaned and struggled to find new and unsuspected storage space in his clothes, but still there remained bundles and bundles at which Uncle Noah gazed over his spectacles in growing discomfiture.

"Whut am I a-goin' to do?" he demanded. "I nevah can come all de way hack yere in de snow wif dese yere ol' legs o' mine."

"Get one of them station cabs," advised the grocer; and so, after considerable discussion, the bundle problem was solved.

Ten minutes later Uncle Noah entered a hired carriage for the first time in his life. At the town florist's he rapped a timid signal to the driver to stop, and, glowing with anticipation, spryly shuffled into the warm, scented air of the little shop. Here, to the smiling clerk's astonishment, he ordered a bunch of violets to be delivered Christmas morning to "de young lady wif de gray eyes whut's at Major Verney's."

"Surely," smiled the clerk, "you don't want that on the card?"

But Uncle Noah was stubborn; more, he insisted on writing the inscription himself, his orthography quite as quaint as his penmanship, and so the card went to be read by the wonderful gray eyes in the morning.

Back through the snow in his rickety carriage rolled Uncle Noah, rattling home along the snowy road down which he had trudged in the early evening, chuckling now intermittently in a mental rehearsal of his new plan.

"Fifty cents a day!" he thought, "an' to-morrow I'se a-goin' to slip over to Fernlands in de mornin' an' ask her to lemme buy maself back on de 'stallment plan. Mos' likely she'll take a dollar a week, an' wid all de rest o' dat grocer money ol' Mis' doan have to know whut de Colonel an' me is a-goin' through."

In accordance with Uncle Noah's whispered directions the cab crept gently up the driveway at Brierwood and paused at the kitchen door, where the driver, who had taken a great fancy to Uncle Noah, became transformed into a benevolent stevedore, tiptoeing in and out of the kitchen with the bundles which the old darky drew from the cavernous pit of the cab. Job's understudy came last, and Uncle Noah, tightly pressing the precious fowl in his arms, watched the carriage drive slowly away. Then, after an interval in the kitchen devoted to hiding his purchases, he sought the library, striving to simulate a decent depression over the assumed decapitation of Job.

Colonel Fairfax looked up inquiringly as he entered.

"I'se jus' come to tell yoh, sah," said Uncle Noah with a meaning glance at Mrs. Fairfax, "dat I has de turkey all ready foh de oven."

A faint red crept through the Colonel's skin, but he met the darky's eyes squarely. "Thank you, Uncle Noah!" he said, and the negro shuffled hurriedly away.

In his old rocking-chair by the kitchen fire Uncle Noah, alert and excited, waited until he heard the Colonel and Mrs. Fairfax go up to bed; then, chuckling to himself, he extinguished the kitchen lights, and, carrying one of his Christmas bundles, plodded across the field to Job's nocturnal hermitage. The light of a match revealed the tyrant roosting glumly on the summit of a ruined plowshare.

"I'se brought yoh a Christmas surprise, Massa Job Fairfax," said Uncle Noah, and he sprinkled the floor of the hut thick with corn that the turkey might find it in the morning.

With his heart full of thanksgiving the negro plodded homeward through the snow. As he reached the old barn the great clock in the library struck twelve and faintly through the snowy air floated the distant silvery chimes of the Cotesville bells, clear and sweet, ringing in a Christmas morning.

Creeping to bed long after the first rooster had crowed Uncle Noah had sought the kitchen again with the sunrise, his tired eyes opening jubilantly upon a snapping cold Christmas morning radiant in gold and white. Downstairs clusters of holly and mistletoe festooned doors and windows, dotted the old-fashioned hanging lamps with spots of crimson, and crowned the family portraits with royal diadems, and evergreen wreaths hung in the windows--all the work of a wrinkled pair of faithful brown hands toiling while the world slept. In the library a blazing wood fire leaped and crackled, while in the dining-room the table was spread for breakfast. Certain long-needed articles of china, which had mysteriously disappeared from time to time since the autumn, dotted a tablecloth free from holes (a new one subjected to a severe laundry process during the night), and the napkins no longer resembled Ku-Klux masks. A great bowl of purple orchids glowed at Mrs. Fairfax's plate.

V
Fernlands

V

The Colonel greeted the Christmas festoons of holly in the library with a stare of astonished approval. A question had risen to his lips, but the warning look in Uncle Noah's eyes as they rested on Mrs. Fairfax had checked it. These two had had many financial and domestic secrets from the dear lady, and the Colonel promptly decided that Uncle Noah had sold some forgotten relic and had once more made use of his highly developed faculty for expanding a small sum to incredible elasticity, and he praised the result accordingly. Mrs. Fairfax, too, brightened wonderfully, yielding to the Christmas spirit with which the old darky had contrived to fill the house.

Uncle Noah felt a glow of delight at their outspoken appreciation, and, bowing elaborately, he ushered his master and mistress in to breakfast. Here again, as he seated himself, the Colonel was conscious of an agreeable flood of astonishment. There was quite an air about this Christmas breakfast. Fixing his keen eyes on the tablecloth and napkins, he stealthily fingered them with a searching look at the waiting negro. Fortunately his interest was speedily diverted. He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife bending over them. With a wrench of his chair he arose.

"Patricia!" he said stormily, "did I not say that nothing of his--did I not--" he paused and gulped. "Uncle Noah," he added unsteadily, "that turkey of yours is gobbling like a fiend under the window; you--he--"

The Colonel stopped abruptly, reddened as his eyes fell upon the negro (Uncle Noah had wisely turned away), and sternly reseated himself, somewhat confused by his thoughtless reference to the late lamented Job,

Uncle Noah hobbled from the room, his brown face working convulsively. In the kitchen he shook with silent laughter, doubling over breathlessly and clasping his hands over his stomach in aching distress.

"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel kindly as the old negro presently re-entered the dining-room, "have we for our Christmas breakfast?"

"Well, sah," Uncle Noah began