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“Gold-headed cane be hanged!” Guy exploded when he read this last sentence from the letter of Marian, Oliver’s wife. “I’ll bet she put him up to it. If anybody dares give me a gold-headed cane before I’m ninety-five I’ll thrash him with it on the spot. He wasn’t using it, either–bless him. He had his old hickory stick, and he wouldn’t have had that if that abominable rheumatism hadn’t gripped him so hard. He isn’t old enough to use a cane, by jolly, and Ol ought to know it, if Marian doesn’t. I’m glad I sent him that typewriter. He liked that, I know he did, and it’ll amuse him, too–not make him think he’s ready to die!”

Guy was not the fellow to forget anything which had taken hold of him as that pathetic Christmas home-coming had done. When the year had nearly rolled around, the first of December saw him at work getting his plans in train. He began with his eldest brother, Oliver, because he considered Mrs. Oliver the hardest proposition he had to tackle in the carrying out of his idea.

“You see,” he expounded patiently, as they sat and stared at him, “it isn’t that they aren’t always awfully glad to see the whole outfit, children and all, but it just struck me it would do ’em a lot of good to revive old times. I thought if we could make it just as much as possible like one of the old Christmases before anybody got married–hang up the stockings and all, you know–it would give them a mighty jolly surprise. I plan to have us all creep in in the night and go to bed in our old rooms. And then in the morning–See?”

Mrs. Oliver looked at him. An eager flush lit his still boyish face–Guy was twenty-eight–and his blue eyes were very bright. His lithe, muscular figure bent toward her pleadingly; all his arguments were aimed at her. Oliver sat back in his impassive way and watched them both. It could not be denied that it was Marian’s decisions which usually ruled in matters of this sort.

“It seems to me a very strange plan,” was Mrs. Oliver’s comment, when Guy had laid the whole thing before her in the most tactful manner he could command. She spoke rather coldly. “It is not usual to think that families should be broken up like this on Christmas Day, of all days in the year. Four families, with somebody gone–a mother or a father–just to please two elderly people who expect nothing of the sort, and who understand just why we can’t all get home at once. Don’t you think you are really asking a good deal?”

Guy kept his temper, though it was hard work. “It doesn’t seem to me I am,” he answered quite gently. “It’s only for once. I really don’t think father and mother would care much what sort of presents we brought them, if we only came ourselves. Of course, I know I’m asking a sacrifice of each family, and it may seem almost an insult not to invite the children and all, yet–perhaps next year we’ll try a gathering of all the clans. But just for this year–honestly–I do awfully wish you’d give me my way. If you’d seen those two last Christmas–“

He broke off, glancing appealingly at Oliver himself. To his surprise, that gentleman shifted his pipe to the corner of his mouth and put a few pertinent questions to his younger brother. Had he thought it all out? What time should they arrive there? How early on the day after Christmas could they get away? Was he positive they could all crowd into the house without rousing and alarming the pair?

“Sure thing,” Guy declared, quickly. “Marietta–well, you know I’ve had the soft side of her old heart ever since I was born, somehow. I talked it all over with her last year, and I’m solid with her, all right. She’ll work the game. You see, father’s quite a bit deaf now–“