nd out how easy a matter it was to
climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and this fact had
been the beginning of all that followed.

"Sahib," he had said one day, "I could cross the slates and make the
child a fire when she is out on some errand. When she returned, wet
and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it."

The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Carrisford's sad face had
lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been so filled with rapture that
he had enlarged upon it and explained to his master how simple it would
be to accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike
pleasure and invention, and the preparations for the carrying out of
the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have
dragged wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had
kept watch, all his packages being in readiness in the attic which was
his own; and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as
interested as himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying
flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when the banquet had
come to its disastrous conclusion; he had been sure of the profoundness
of Sara's wearied sleep; and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept
into the room, while his companion remained outside and handed the
things to him. When Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had
closed the lantern-slide and lain flat upon the floor. These and many
other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand
questions.

"I am so glad," Sara said. "I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!"

There never were such friends as these two became. Somehow, they
seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. The Indian gentleman had
never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sara. In a
month's time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a
new man. He was always amused and interested, and he began to find an
actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he
loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for
Sara. There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and
it was one of his pleasures to invent things to surprise her. She
found beautiful new flowers growing in her room, whimsical little gifts
tucked under pillows, and once, as they sat together in the evening,
they heard the scratch of a heavy paw on the door, and when Sara went