ed him up the stairs to a closet where the silver
was evidently kept! He caught the man red-handed as it were! Or
rather--white-handed," flushed the Master of the House for some quite
unaccountable reason. "To be perfectly accurate," he explained
conscientiously, "he was caught with a pair of--of--" Delicately he
spelt out the word. "With a pair of--c-o-r-s-e-t-s rolled up in his
hand. But inside the roll it seemed there was a solid silver--very
elaborate carving set which the Parish had recently presented. The
wretch was just unrolling it,--them, when he was caught."

"That was Bertrand!" said Flame. "My Father's Lay Reader."

It was the man's turn now to jump to his feet.

"_What_?" he cried.

"I sent him for the carving knife," said Flame.

"_What_?" repeated the man. Consternation versus Hilarity went racing
suddenly like a cat-and-dog combat across his eyes.

"Yes," said Flame.

From the outside door the sound of furious knocking occurred suddenly.

"That sounds to me like--like parents' knocking," shivered Flame.

"It sounds to me like an escaped Lay Reader," said her Host.

With a single impulse they both started for the door.

"Don't worry, Little Girl," whispered the young Stranger in the dark
hall.

"I'll try not to," quivered Flame.

They were both right, it seemed.

It was Parents _and_ the Lay Reader.

All three breathless, all three excited, all three reproachful,--they
swept into the warm, balsam-scented Rattle-Pane House with a gust of
frost, a threat of disaster.

"F--lame," sighed her Father.

"Flame!" scolded her Mother.

"Flame?" implored the Lay Reader.

"What a pretty name," beamed the Master of the House. "Pray be seated,
everybody," he gestured graciously to left and right,--shoving one
dog expeditiously under the table with his foot, while he yanked
another out of a chair with his least gesticulating hand. "This is
certainly a very great pleasure, I assure you," he affirmed distinctly
to Miss Flamande Nourice. "Returning quite unexpectedly to my new
house this lonely Christmas evening," he explained very definitely to
the Rev. Flamande Nourice, "I can't express to you what it means to me
to find this pleasant gathering of neighbors waiting here to welcome
me! And when I think of the effort _you_ must have made to get here,
Mr. Bertrand," he beamed. "A young man of all your obligations
and--complications--"

"Pleasant ... gathering of neighbors?" questioned Mrs. Nourice