Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/39

 it was with eagerness that he adjusted his eye-shade to-night, because when he lifted the cover of his book he knew that he would swing open the doors on one of the greatest centuries in human history, the century in which the world discovered the individual. Hampstead was himself an individual. This was in some sense the story of his own discovery.

When John had been reading for perhaps half an hour, there came a bird-like tap at his door, accompanied by a suppressed giggle.

"Who comes there?" called the student in sepulchral tones, stabbing the page at a particular spot with his thumb, while his eyes were lifted.

The only audible sound was another giggle, but the door swung open mysteriously, revealing two small, white-robed figures silhouetted against the shadows in the studio.

"Enter, ghosts!" John commanded, in the same sepulchral voice, while his eyes fell again upon his pages. The ghosts chortled and advanced, but with great circumspection, to the little table with its dangerously balanced bookshelf, its miscellaneous litter of papers, and its silent, absorbed student.

Tayna, her long burnished curls cascading over the white of her nightgown, and her eyes shining softly, ducked her head and arose under one arm of her uncle, where presently she felt herself drawn close with an affectionate, satisfying sort of squeeze. The boy, approaching from the other side, laid an arm upon the shoulder of the man, and stood watching with fascination the eyes of his uncle in their steady sweep from side to side of the printed page.

"Uncle John," asked Tayna shyly, burying her face in his neck as she put the question, "when will you be President?"