ptation to kiss
the little unconscious faces. And Joel Dale, prematurely aged, selfish
and embittered, woke nearer his childish self, and nearer Heaven, than
he had been in many a year.

For a moment he lay bewildered, then opened an eye. An elfin voice
beside him commented on the fact. "Half of you's awake and half
asleep. Ain't that funny?"

Joel's two eyes came into action long enough to perceive Celia, sitting
in a chair drawn close to the bed. Her sturdy legs were crossed, her
hands folded. She looked dangerously demure.

"I gave you a kiss when you was asleep, a pink one. Do you like pink
kisses?"

"Pink?" he repeated, too startled by the choice of adjectives to
realize how long it had been since any one had kissed him.

"Aunt Persis let me have some jelly," Celia explained. "I like to lick
my lips off, but I didn't so I could give you a nice pink kiss."

He put one hand hastily to his forehead, thereby verifying his worst
suspicions. It was sticky. Joel groaned.

"Want me to 'poor' you?" the fairy voice inquired with an accent
indicating a sense of responsibility. A small hand moved over his
unshaven cheek. "Poor Uncle Joel! Poor Uncle Joel," cooed Celia. She
interrupted her efforts to ask with interest, "Do you like your skin
all prickles? Mine ain't that way," and proved her statement by laying
a cheek like a rose-leaf against his. Joel shrank away gasping.

"Want me to tell you a story?" Celia did not wait for Joel's assent.
The ministering hand nestled against his cheek; she drew a long breath
and began.

"Once when I was a little girl, there was a giant lived up by my house.
And he was an awful wicked giant, and he used to bite people's heads
off. And he wanted to fight everybody, and everybody was scared 'cept
just me." She paused, overcome by the contemplation of her own
heroism. "Wasn't that funny? Everybody was 'fraid 'cept a teenty,
weenty girl."

Joel lay staring at his entertainer, his expression suggestive of such
excitement, not to say horror, that the narrator apparently found it
inspiring.

"And the old giant kept a-talking and a-talking and a-biting and
a-biting. And one day I took my bow'n arrow-- No." She corrected
herself sternly, with the air of one who refuses to deviate ever so
slightly from the strict facts. "I took my sling and some stones I
found in the brook--"

Joel suddenly realized his responsibility as a mentor of youth. "Look
here! Look h