hair--she
would rather have sat on the floor, but was afraid of rumpling her
dress--and helped them play "cars" with Andor's iron railway set. She
showed him new ways to lay his tracks and how to make switches, set up
his Noah's ark village for stations and packed the animals in the open
coal cars to send them to the stockyards. They worked out their shipment
so realistically that when Andor put the two little reindeer into the
stock car, Tanya snatched them out and began to cry, saying she wasn't
going to have all their animals killed.

Harsanyi came in, jaded and tired, and asked Thea to go on with her
game, as he was not equal to talking much before dinner. He sat down and
made pretense of glancing at the evening paper, but he soon dropped it.
After the railroad began to grow tiresome, Thea went with the children
to the lounge in the corner, and played for them the game with which she
used to amuse Thor for hours together behind the parlor stove at home,
making shadow pictures against the wall with her hands. Her fingers were
very supple, and she could make a duck and a cow and a sheep and a fox
and a rabbit and even an elephant. Harsanyi, from his low chair, watched
them, smiling. The boy was on his knees, jumping up and down with the
excitement of guessing the beasts, and Tanya sat with her feet tucked
under her and clapped her frail little hands. Thea's profile, in the
lamplight, teased his fancy. Where had he seen a head like it before?

When dinner was announced, little Andor took Thea's hand and walked to
the dining-room with her. The children always had dinner with their
parents and behaved very nicely at table. "Mamma," said Andor seriously
as he climbed into his chair and tucked his napkin into the collar of
his blouse, "Miss Kronborg's hands are every kind of animal there is."

His father laughed. "I wish somebody would say that about my hands,
Andor."

When Thea dined at the Harsanyis before, she noticed that there was an
intense suspense from the moment they took their places at the table
until the master of the house had tasted the soup. He had a theory that
if the soup went well, the dinner would go well; but if the soup was
poor, all was lost. To-night he tasted his soup and smiled, and Mrs.
Harsanyi sat more easily in her chair and turned her attention to Thea.
Thea loved their dinner table, because it was lighted by candles in
silver candle-sticks, and she had never seen a table so lighted anywher