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?"
"When _shall_ you be President?" corrected the boy, looking across at his sister with that same old-mannish expression which was a part of all he said and did.
Hampstead cuddled the girl closer, and his eye abandoned the page to look down the bridge of his nose into distance.
"Oh, because," said Tayna, with a little shiver of eagerness, "I can hardly wait."
Hampstead's eyes wandered to his motto on the wall. The eyes of the boy followed and spelled out the letters wonderingly, but in silence.
"We must be able to wait," said John, squeezing Tayna again. "It's a long, long way; but if we just keep on keeping on, why, after a while we are there, you know."
Tayna sighed and reached up a round, plump arm till it encircled Hampstead's neck, as she asked, still more shyly:
"And when you are President, every one will know just how good and great you are, and they won't call you awkward nor--nor homely any more, will they?"