courage for
ourselves and compassion for all others which, come what may, living or
dying, will gird us so to acquit ourselves that in the end we may stand
before thee unashamed and by thy mercy and thy love be welcomed into
thine own eternal joy."

"Amen!" cried the exhorter and burst anew into song:

"'Chidl-dredn of the-e heabm-lye kiggn,
As we jour-nye sweet-lye siggn.
Siggn----'"

He ceased and flashed a glance, first up to Hugh, whose hand lay on his
shoulder, and then over to the standing player. A hush was on the
reseated company, and its united gaze on Ramsey and the mourner who with
her had been audibly following the prayer. Two seats from her Mrs.
Gilmore vainly tried to catch her eye. The penitent was in his seat
again. He bent low forward, his face in his hands, and face and hands
hid in his thick fair locks. Ramsey had turned toward him with a knee in
her chair, a handkerchief pressed fiercely against her lips, and her
drowned eyes gazing down on him. But as the actor was about to speak she
wheeled toward him and stood with an arm beseechingly thrown out, her
voice breaking in her throat.

XXVI

ALARM AND DISTRESS

"It's Basile!" she cried. Then, one after another, to the exhorter, to
Hugh, to each of the two Gilmores separately: "This is wrong, all wrong!
You said we mustn't alarm or distress any one--and we mustn't!" She
tried to face her chair round to the bowed head, and Hugh, at a touch
from his grandfather, moved to her aid. Mrs. Gilmore too had started but
was kept back by others, whispering with her on the edges of their
seats.

"It's all wrong," insisted Ramsey to Hugh close at hand, "and we mustn't
do it! You said we mustn't!"

The exhorter was gratified, not to say flattered. "H-it ain't none of it
wrong, my young sisteh," he called across. "Ef yo' bretheh's distress ah
the fear o' damnation it's all right and Gawd's name be pra-aised!"

"Amen!" groaned one or two of the undistressed majority, while old Joy
modestly pressed up from the rear.

"Please, good ladies an' gen'lemens," she said as she came, "will you
please fo' to lem-me thoo, ef you please? Dat's my young mahsteh, what I
done nu's' f'om a baby. Ef you please'm, will you please suh, fo' to
lem-me pass, ef you please?" In gentle haste she made her way, many eyes
following, and heads swinging right and left to see around the heads
that came between. The goal was reached just as Ramsey, in her turn