ck home he came and had the bed sawed off! He wanted future
generations to see what a little man could do, and his will provided
that this house should not be sold, and that, when his sons and
grandsons had proved themselves worthy of it by some achievement, they
should come here and sleep. I think he swaggered a little when he wrote
that will, and he has put his descendants in an embarrassing position.
We can never sleep in the canopy bed without taking more upon ourselves
than modesty permits!"

He laughed, and instinctively his eyes sought those of the girl who
waited on the table. Somehow he felt that she was the only one who could
understand.

She came back at him with a question: "What have you done?"

"I have written a book," he told her.

She shook her head, and there were little sparks of light in her eyes.
"I don't believe that was what your grandfather meant," she said,
slowly.

They stared at her--three of the brothers with their knives and forks
uplifted, the fourth, a blond Titanic youngster, with his elbows on the
table, his face turned up to her, as to the sun.

"I don't believe he meant something done with your brains, but something
fine, heroic--" There was a hint of scorn in her voice.

Van Alen flushed. He was fresh from the adulation of his bookish world.

"I should not have come," he explained, uncomfortably, "if my mother had
not desired that I preserve the tradition of the family."

"It is a great thing to write a book"--she was leaning forward, aflame
with interest--"but I don't believe he meant just that--"

He laughed. "Then I am not to sleep in the canopy bed?"

The girl laughed too. "Not unless you want to be haunted by his ghost."

With a backward flashing glance, she went into the kitchen, and Van
Alen, lighting a cigarette, started to explore the old house.

Except for the wing, occupied by the caretaker, nothing had been
disturbed since the family, seeking new fortunes in the city, had left
the old homestead to decay among the desolate fields that yielded now a
meagre living for Mrs. Brand and her four strapping sons.

In the old parlor, where the ancient furniture showed ghostlike shapes
in the dimness, and the dead air was like a tomb, Van Alen found a
picture of his great-grandfather.

The little man had been painted without flattery. There he
sat--Lilliputian on the great charger! At that moment Van Alen hated
him--that Hop-o'-my-Thumb of another age, founder of a pi