"Why, hello, Jack!" he called cheerily. "How are you, my boy? I'm so glad to see you."
He hung up his hat, and went forward to clap him on the shoulder and hold the little hands lovingly in his big, strong ones. While he still sat on the arm of Jack's chair, there was a sudden parting of the portieres behind them, a swift rustle, and two white hands met over his eyes and blindfolded him.
"O! O!" cried Jack ecstatically, and then clapped his hand over his mouth as he heard a warning "Sh!"
"It's Ray, of course," said Mr. Marion, laughing and reaching backwards to seize whoever had blindfolded him. "Nobody else would take such liberties."
"O, wouldn't they?" cried a mocking voice. "What about Ray's younger sister?"
He turned around, and catching her by the shoulders, held her out in front of him.
"Well, Lois Denning!" he exclaimed in amazement. "When did you get here, little sister? I never imagined you were within two hundred miles of this place."
"Neither did Ray until this morning. I just walked in unannounced."
When he had given her a hearty welcome she said: "O, I'm not the only one to surprise you. Just go in the other room, Brother Frank, and see who all's there, while I talk with this young man I haven't seen for a year."
Lois Denning had been Jack's favorite cousin since he was old enough to fasten his baby fingers in her long, brown hair. In her yearly visits to her sister she had devoted so much of her time to him, and been such a willing slave, that he looked forward to her coming even a shade more eagerly than he watched for Christmas.