"Drive on to the next gate," called out the young lady, partly opening the door. Bosworth almost fell off in his valiant attempt to catch a glimpse of her face.
With a great deal of stealth and no small amount of suppressed, eager laughter, they made their way into the kitchen of the quaint old house.
Half an hour later Mr. Bosworth Van Pycke, suffering somewhat from stage fright but buoyed by the promise of unequivocal success in his new rôle, bounded from the pantry into the dining-room, befurred and bewhiskered, with nothing showing but his nose, greatly to the delight and consternation of a dozen small children who shrieked with excitement.
He had appeared with some success in amateur theatricals and had led cotillions under the most nerve-racking conditions, but never before had he come plump against an audience of children. It was rather terrifying. He halted in the middle of the room, to the left of the brilliantly lighted, tinselled tree with its load of presents, and there he stuck, spellbound, until the shrill voice of one less awed than the rest broke the hush that had fallen upon the expectant group in the row of chairs beyond.
"Hello, Santy!" piped up this small, confident voice. Bosworth could not afford to be outdone in politeness. He responded:
"What a pretty voice you have," called out a pink little girl.
Right there Bosworth forgot his lines. He was to say something about Christmas coming but once a year and that Santa Claus loved nice little girls and boys, after which he was to appeal to Miss Pembroke for assistance in distributing the presents. But the ingenuous compliment upset him. He made his appeal to Miss Pembroke first, and it was rather a piteous one at that. She flew at once to his relief. In two minutes he was talking volubly, even brilliantly, shouting back at the children and making himself so generously noisy that he would have been very much shocked if he could have stepped outside and heard himself.
Four or five nurses in the background giggled and simpered; the housemaid and the cook grinned so amiably that Miss Pembroke had real hopes that she could keep them in Princeton for the rest of the winter.
"The Pembroke infants are the only poor man's blessings in the crowd, Mr. Van Pycke," said Mary in a gay aside. "The others have everything. But they are having a good time, aren't they?"