There, standing on its hind legs in the door, was an enormous bear, taller than any man they had ever seen.  Its mouth was open, and a long red tongue hung out between its gleaming teeth.  Trailing behind him was a heavy rope, that showed that he had broken away from some place of confinement.

[Illustration:  “THERE WAS ONE WILD SCREAM AFTER ANOTHER.”]

There was one wild scream after another, as the girls sprang up, spilling the four Bobs out of their laps to the floor.  Eugenia rolled under the bed in such mad haste that she bumped her head against the footboard, crying in an imploring tone as she disappeared, “Oh, don’t eat me!  Don’t eat me!” Joyce scrambled up on a high chest of drawers, and from there to the top of the wardrobe, where she sat panting and looking down at the bear, who seemed surprised at his reception.  After one frightened scream, Betty buried her head in a sofa pillow like a little ostrich, and made no attempt to escape.  She seemed glued to her chair.

The Little Colonel, who had stumbled over all of the four Bobbies in her confusion, and fallen on top of them as she tried to scramble up from her knees, gave one more startled look at the intruder, and then sprang up with an angry cry.  “It’s that old tramp beah that belongs to Malcolm and Keith,” she exclaimed, in a great passion.  The girls had never seen her in such a fury.

“Get out of heah, mistah!” she shrieked, stamping her foot and scowling darkly.  “This is the second time you have neahly frightened me to death!  Get out of heah, I say, or I’ll break every bone in yo’ body!” She had been so startled by Eliot’s appearance and then the general outcry, that her nervousness passed into a rage.  Picking up the book that Betty had been reading, she hurled it at the astonished bear with all her force.  Eliot’s work-basket followed next, and the pillows from the bed and sofa.  Next she tore off her slippers, and sent them flying against the brown furry back now turned toward her.  Not knowing what to make of such a shower of spools and needles, scissors, buttons, and wearing apparel, old Bruin dropped on all fours and ambled out of the doorway just as Lloyd caught up the water pitcher.

A panting little coloured boy met him on the stairs and caught up the rope trailing behind him.  “He won’t hurt you, Miss Lloyd,” he called, assuringly.  “He b’long to Mistah Keith an’ Mistah Malcolm.  They done tole me to lead him up heah, and I stopped to shet the gate an’ he broke away from me.  They comin’ ’long theyselves, toreckly, I b’lieve that’s them a-comin’ now.  The beah ain’t gwine to hurt you.”

“Oh, I am not afraid of the beah,” answered Lloyd, “but I hate to be surprised.  It came walkin’ in on us so easy that I didn’t have time to see that it was only an old tame beah.  It stood up on its hind legs lookin’ twice as big as usual, and when everybody screamed and carried on so, I didn’t know what I was doin’.  As soon as I realised that it was the boys’ pet I wasn’t afraid, but it made me mad to be startled that way.  And that’s the second time it has happened.”