we three, at least, knew it as much as our skins were worth to offer practical hospitality in his absence. 

 Zyp looked at our faces and stamped her foot lively, with a toss of disdain. 

 “Where is the strong drink?” she said. 

 Modred tittered. “In that cupboard over the mantel shelf, if you must know,” he said. 

 Zyp had the bottle out in a twinkling and a glass with it. She poured out a stiff rummer, added water from a stone bottle on a corner shelf, and presented the grateful offering to the visitor, who had reseated himself by the table. 

 His scruples of conscience and discretion grew faint in the near neighborhood of the happy cordial. He seized the glass and impulsively took half the grog at a breath. Zyp clapped her hands joyfully, whereupon he clumped down the glass on the table with a dismayed look. 

 “Well,” he said, “you’re an odd little witch, upon my word. What Robin Goodfellow fathered you, I should like to know?” 

 “He’s no father,” said Zyp. “He’s too full of tricks for a family man. I could tell you things of him.” 

 “Tell us some then,” said the doctor. 

 What Zyp would have answered I don’t know, for at that moment my father walked into the room. If he had had what is vulgarly called a skinful, he was not drunk, for he moved steadily up to the little group at the table with a scowl contracting his forehead. The half-emptied tumbler had caught his eye immediately and he pointed to it. I was conscious that the doctor quaked a little. 

 “Pray make yourself at home,” said my father, and caught up the glass and flung its contents in the other’s face. In a moment the two men were locked in a savage, furious embrace, till, crashing over a chair, they were flung sprawling on the floor and apart. Before they could come together again Zyp alone of us had placed herself between them, fearless and beautiful, and had broken into a quaint little song: 

“Smooth down her fur,

Rub sleep over her eyes,

Sweet, never stir.

Kiss down the coat of her

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