The Judge walked calmly out through the house to the garden and through the garden to the stable.

Arrived in the stable, he called to Roblee, who was unharnessing, to turn on all the electric lights above and below. Then he and Titus went up to the pigeon loft.

The Judge pushed open the screen door. It was just as he had thought. On a little stool by the door sat Bethany sound asleep, a white owl pigeon in her lap, another on her head. Her own head was thrown back against the wall, one hand resting caressingly on the beautiful creature in her lap.

The owls opened wide their large eyes and gazed at the Judge and Titus in mild surprise. Other pigeons eyed them from nest boxes and perches. They were all very tame, but not all would have allowed Bethany to handle them as did the gentle owls.

“Go tell the servants that she is found,” said the Judge to Titus.

The boy rushed down the steps, and the Judge bent over Bethany. She had no wrap on, and the pigeon loft was not kept very warm.

He looked at a thermometer over her head—fifty degrees.

“Child,” he said, gently shaking her, “wake up.”

She drowsily opened her eyes and murmured, “Birds of heaven.”

The Judge shook her again. “Come! Come! Don’t you want some Christmas dinner?”

She staggered to her little feet. “O! is it you, Mr. Judge! I was dreaming of you and the birds.”

The Judge smiled, took her hand, and conducted her down the steps, then carried her in the house. Upon arriving inside they found Mrs. Blodgett, who had just come from her midday Christmas dinner, eaten at her daughter’s. She had been overwhelming the unfortunate Betty with reproaches. If she, Mrs. Blodgett, had been at home the child would not have been allowed to steal away and give everyone such an upsetting—just like a careless, giddy girl, and she swept away the little child to make her toilet for dinner.

From her store of clothes she managed to unearth another dress of the grandchild Mary Ann’s, for Bethany appeared at the dinner table in pale blue.

Very pretty she looked as she came gently into the dining room and allowed old Higby to lift her to a seat beside the Judge.

The table was decorated with holly and red ribbons and a miniature Christmas tree.

Bethany’s eyes shone brightly. At last she was wide awake, having had sleep enough to last her for some time.

She said nothing, but her appreciation of her gay and brilliant surroundings was so intense that, to the secret amusement of the Judge and Titus, she made up her mind to have a participator—some one who was not used to this style of living. Instead of waiting for the end of the meal she put up her hand at once, drew out the ghost of the dead mouse, and placed him behind a sprig of holly. All through the meal, from soup to fruit, mousie had his share of what was going. Not a course did he miss, and it was a very stuffed and overcome ghost that the child finally wrapped in her handkerchief when they left the table.

The big parlor was lighted, the piano was open, and picture books and games were laid out, but in some way or other the trio, after dinner, drifted to the Judge’s study. There on the hearthrug by the fire, with Princess Sukey, the two children, or, rather, the boy and the child, sat and talked, while the Judge listened quietly from his armchair. Part of the time Titus was shouting with laughter. In some marvelous way he had got over all his bashfulness of the morning. Bethany was such a little girl that it did not seem worth while to be afraid of her, and then he was in honor bound to tell her about their visit to the Tingsbys.

Airy, she said, was the name of the eldest girl. Airy, nickname for Mary, then came Annie, Rodd, Goldie, Gibb, and Dobbie.

“W-w-what’s Dobbie?” inquired Titus, “boy or girl?”

“Why, boy, of course,” responded Bethany, “didn’t you see him?”

“Y-y-yes, I saw a baby sitting on the floor, but I didn’t know which name belonged to him.”

“Then you had to think a name to him,” said Bethany, dreamily.

“T-t-think a name—what’s that?”

“Why, you know that everything has a name,” said the little girl, staring at him wonderingly. “There isn’t any ‘it’ about anything. If you don’t know the name, you just give one.”

“O-o-of course, everything has a name,” said the boy, stoutly, “but if I don’t know it I don’t give one. I wait till I find out.”

“I don’t,” she replied, shaking her head. “I give a name to everything.”

“Did you give me a name before you heard mine?”

“Of course,” she replied, with dignity.

“W-w-what name did you give me?”

“You won’t be cross?” she said, surveying him doubtfully.

“C-c-certainly not.”

“I gave you the name of Blackie,” she said, with a glance up at his dark head.

Titus burst into a fit of laughter. “Y-y-you did that last night when you were so sleepy?”

Bethany nodded her head. “I wasn’t too sleepy to think.”

“A-a-and now—what do you give me now?”

“I give you your own name,” she said, patiently, “but the other one is in the top of my mind. I could call it down if I wanted to.”

“W-w-would you give this hearthrug a name?” asked the boy, teasingly.

She caressingly passed a hand over the red velvet pile. “Yes, boy, I call this rug Red Heart.”

Titus did not laugh this time. He stared curiously and silently at her.

The Judge interposed a quiet question. “Did you think me a name before you knew my real one, little girl?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, shyly, turning round to face him.

“What was it?”

“I called you Mr. White Tree because your white hair is so soft, just like the blossoms on a little tree in the flower shop on Broadway.”

“Do you call me by that name, now?” pursued the Judge, curiously.

“No, sir.”

“What do you call me?”

She hung her head and twisted her fingers together. “Bethany would rather not speak that name out loud,” she said, in a low voice.

“It isn’t Judge Sancroft, then,” ventured her senior, kindly.

She shook her head.

“W-w-whisper it,” proposed Titus, bluntly. “I’ve seen girls whisper things when they would not speak them out.”

She mumbled something to herself that the boy could not hear.

“G-g-go say it in his ear,” stuttered Titus, impatiently.

Bethany looked shyly at the Judge.

“Come, if you want to,” he said, with a smile.

She edged up to him step by step. “It’s Daddy Grandpa,” she whispered in his ear.

“Why Daddy Grandpa?” he whispered back.

“’Cause Bethany hasn’t any daddy and she hasn’t any grandpa, and she likes to call you that.”

The Judge had noticed before that in moments of great embarrassment Bethany often spoke of herself in the third person, therefore he hastened to reassure her.

“You may call me that name all the time, dear child, if it will be any comfort to you.”

A strange glow came over her face, apart from the glow of the firelight. Poor little lonely heart, craving for natural relationship and sympathy! However, she had been schooled to restrain emotion, and with a simple “Thank you, sir,” she went back to the hearthrug.

“S-s-sir,” remarked Titus, “it’s getting pretty hot here, and that pigeon is just roasting herself.”

The Judge wrinkled his eyebrows. “It is most unfortunate that that bird has contracted the habit of sitting by the fire—most abnormal, most abnormal. Open the window and see whether she will go out on the balcony.”

Bethany, who had been sitting as close as possible to Sukey’s basket, silently adoring her, moved back, and Titus got up and went to a window.

“C-c-come, Sukey.”

The pigeon understood him perfectly well, and, stepping out of her basket, she walked round and round in a state of great indignation. “Rookety cahoo! rookety cahoo!”

“Let her alone, boy,” said the Judge, “she won’t go out to-night, it is too cold. If we insist, she will stand outside and tap on the window until our nerves are upset. There, close the window. You have cooled the room. We will keep doing that, in order that we may not suffer from the heat.”

Titus concealed a smile as he looked out into the cold night. What a change had come over his grandfather. Who would have imagined last Christmas that this Christmas he would have a pet pigeon in his study?

“And now you had better go to bed, children,” said the Judge, as the big hall clock struck ten. “Have you had a nice Christmas, little girl?”

Bethany went and stood beside his armchair. “Sir, it is the best Christmas I ever had. I shall tell my mamma about it to-night.”

The Judge said nothing, but held out a hand to her.

She clasped his large fingers tightly in her tiny ones. “Good-night, sir—may I say the name?”

“O, yes—decidedly.”

“Daddy Grandpa,” she murmured, “good-night, Daddy Grandpa. Now Bethany is like other little girls. She isn’t all alone in the world, like a poor stray cat.”

The Judge stared dreamily into the fire. What a strange child! He must take the greatest pains to find a home suitable for her in every respect.