im, and Miss Mathewson had tucked an extra pillow under it. His father
had drawn himself up to a half-sitting posture and was regarding his son
with pride.

"I never thought so well of those doings before," he was saying. "If
they've kept you as supple as a willow, in spite of your weight, I
should say you'd better keep 'em up."

"You bet I will!--See here, Aunt Ellen--you used to play the 'Irish
Washerwoman: Mind playing it now? Miss Mathewson and I are going to do a
cakewalk."

He glanced, laughing, at his office nurse. She was staring at him
wide-eyed. He threw back his head, showing a splendid array of white
teeth as he roared at her expression.

"Forget 'Doctor Burns,' please," said he, in answer to the expression.
"He's discharged this case as not serious enough for him, and left it
to Red Pepper to administer a few gentle stimulants on the quack order.
Come! You can do a cake walk! Forget you're a graduate of any training
school but the vaudeville show!"

He caught her hand. Flushing so that her plain face became almost
pretty, she yielded--for the hand was insistent. Miss Ellen leaned
bewildered against the door which led to the sitting-room where the old
piano stood. Her nephew looked at her again, with the eyes which
the Chesters' guest had somewhat incoherently described as
"Irish-Scotch-barbarian." He said, "Please, Aunt Ellen, there's a good
fellow," at which Mr. Burns, Senior, chuckled under his breath; for
anything less like that of a "good fellow" was never seen than Sister
Ellen's prim little personality. Miss Ellen went protestingly to the
piano. Was it right, her manner said, to be performing in this idiotic
manner at this unholy hour of three o'clock in the morning--in a
sick-room?

It mattered little whether Miss Mathewson could or could not dance the
"Irish Washerwoman," or any other antic dance improvised to that live
air; she had only to yield herself to Red Pepper Burns's hands and
steps, and let him disport himself around her. A most startlingly
hilarious performance was immediately and effectively produced. At the
height of it, a door across the sitting-room, which commanded a strip
of the bedroom beyond, opened cautiously and Zeke Crandall's eye glued
itself to the aperture, an eye astonished beyond belief.

"If that there Red ain't a-cuttin' up jest exactly as he used to when
he was a boy--and his pa and ma sick a-bed! If 'twas anybody but Red I'd
say he was crazy."

Then he caugh