Fresh from the tub and the daily delightful frolic with Daddy, they now appeared for that other ceremonial known as saying good-night to Granny.

“Teddy!  Teddy!  Ride us to Granny,” demanded Eric hilariously, jubilant at finding his favorite tall cousin on the spot.

“’Es, wide us, wide us,” chimed in Hester, not to be outdone.

“You fiends!” But Ted obediently got down on “all fours” while the small folks clambered up on his back and he “rode” them over to the bed, their bathrobes flying as they went.  Arrived at the destination Ted deftly deposited his load in a giggling, squirming heap on the rug and then gathering up the small Hester, swung her aloft, bringing her down with her rose bud of a mouth close to Granny’s pale cheeks.

“Kiss your flying angel, Granny, before she flies away again.”

“Me!  Me!” clamored Eric vociferously, hugging Ted’s knees.  “Me flying angel, too!”

“Not much,” objected Ted.  “No angel about you.  Too, too much solid flesh and bones.  Kiss Granny, quick.  I hear your parents approaching.”

Philip and Margery appeared on the threshold, seeking their obstreperous offspring.

There was another stampede, this time in the direction of the “parents.”

“Ca’y me!  Ca’y me, Daddy,” chirruped Hester.

“No, me.  Ride me piggy-back,” insisted Eric.

“Such children!” smiled Margery.  “Ted, you encourage them.  They are more barbarian than ever when you are here, and they are bad enough under normal conditions.”

Ted chuckled at that.  He and his Aunt Margery were the best of good friends.  They always had been since Ted had refused to join her Round Table on the grounds that he might have to be sorry for being bad if he did, though he had subsequently capitulated, in view of the manifest advantages accruing to membership in the order.

“That’s right.  Lay it to me.  I don’t believe Uncle Phil was a saint, either, was he, Granny?” he appealed.  “I’ll bet the kids get some of their deviltry by direct line of descent.”

His grandmother smiled.

“We forget a good deal about our children’s naughtinesses when they are grown up,” she said.  “I’ve even forgotten some of yours, Teddy.”

“Lucky,” grinned her grandson, stooping to kiss her again. “Allons, enfants.”

Later, when the obstreperous ones were in bed and everything quiet Philip and Margery sat together in the hammock, lovers still after eight years of strenuous married life and discussed Larry’s last letter, which had contained the rather astonishing request that he be permitted to bring the little lady who had forgotten her past to Holiday Hill with him.

“Queer proposition!” murmured the doctor.  “Doesn’t sound like sober Larry.”

“I am not so sure.  There is a quixotic streak in him—­in all you Holidays, for that matter.  You can’t say much.  Think of the stray boys you have taken in at one time or another, some of them rather dubious specimens, I infer.”