him. Ramsey's eyes, like Hugh's, were on the commodore and the senator,
who were starting off together. The commodore's nod called Hugh and he
moved to overtake them. The boy whom Hugh had sent to the texas,
returning, sought to intercept him, but Hugh passed on and the messenger
found Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to both
servants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainly
disturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stood
addressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftily
defensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, if
our gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting a
minister of the gospel," he began----

"Amen to dat!" said old Joy, and as Ramsey's eyes showed tears the
speaker paused.

"All right," she quietly said. "Come to my sick brother. Won't you,
please?"

"Why--why, yes, I--I will. Cer-certainly I will. Yet--really--if I'm
forbidden to alarm him"--his smile could not hide his sense of mortal
risk.

"Oh, he's already alarmed!"

"He's turrified!" softly said old Joy.

"Why, then, the moment we're through our meeting----"

"Don't begin it!" said Ramsey. "It can wait heaps better than he can.
He's waiting now and begging for you. Come! You needn't be afraid; I'll
go with you!" She laughed.

"No!" cried Joy. "Lawd, Mahs' Bishop, she mus'n't!"

"She need not," said the bishop. "But for me to go now, before I--why, I
couldn't come back and mingle----"

"Oh, come!" The girl drew him by the sleeve. But the Gilmores held her
back and he went on alone, his face betraying a definite presentiment as
he glanced round in response to a clapping of hands.

"Oh, thank you!" cried Ramsey. "Gawd bless you!" droned Joy. "We'll run
your meeting while you're gone!" called Ramsey. "And we'll pray for you!
Won't we?" she asked the players, and they and others answered: "Yes."

XXII

BASILE AND WHAT HE SAW

For these twenty hours of constant activity one young passenger, save
only when asleep in his berth, had contemplated the _Votaress_ and her
swarming managers and voyagers with a regard different from any we have
yet taken into account. The Gilmores, softly to each other, termed him
"a type." To the face of nature he seemed wholly insensible. As the
gliding boat incessantly bore him onward between river and sky, shore
and shore, he appeared never to be aware whether the forests were gra