t other times the longing for a
sensational uncovering of her belated and extraordinary goodness seized
her, and her naked foot slipped from the cold pedal only to be hurriedly
replaced before the jangle of the keys could escape.

How long she practised, and whether she redeemed herself and Number 9,
Sissy never knew, for she fell asleep at last over the keys and was
waked by a hoarse scream and a wild cry of "De debbil! De debbil!"

It was Wong, the Chinaman, who had but one name for all things
supernatural. Coming home from Chinatown, he was passing the glass door
near which the piano stood when he saw the slender figure in its
trailing white drapery bowed over the keys.

Sissy looked up, sleep still bewildering her, and yet awake enough to be
fearful of consequences. She tore open the door and sped after the
Chinaman to enlighten him, but her pursuit only confirmed Wong's
conception of that mission of malice which is devil's work on earth. A
terrified howl burst from him. There was only one being on earth of whom
he stood in greater awe than the thing he fancied he was fleeing from;
that one, logically, must be greater than It. Taking his very life in
his hand, he doubled, darted past the shivering Thing, flew on through
the open door, and made straight for the master's room.

For Sissy there was nothing to do but to follow.

"I wanted to be good," she wailed, unnerved, when Aunt Anne had her by
the shoulder and was catechizing her in the presence of a nightgowned
multitude of excited Madigans.

But succor came from an unexpected quarter. "Let the child alone, Anne,"
growled Madigan, adjusting the segment of the leg of woolen underwear
which he wore for a nightcap; and seizing Sissy in his arms, he bore her
off to bed.

"Papa's pet! Papa's baby!" mouthed Irene, under her breath, as she
danced tauntingly along behind his back.

[Illustration:
"Seizing Sissy in his arms, he bore her off to bed"]

And Sissy, outraged in all the dignity of her eleven years at being
carried like a child, but unspeakably happy in her father's favor,
looked over his shoulder with a sheepish, smiling, sleepy face,
murmuring, "Sour grapes, Split, sour grapes!"

Afterward, encouraged by the darkness and the strangeness of being laid
in bed from her father's arms, Sissy held him a moment by her side.

"When men make promises on paper that they can't keep, father," she
whispered, "what do they do?"

"Oh, go to sleep, chi