?"

"Not as often as diffidence and conceitedness."

"Why, Mr. Hugh!"

"One thing that makes me so silent is my conceit."

"Oh, you! you're not conceited at all! You're modest! You little know
how great you are! You're a wonder!" Her tone was candor itself till
maiden craft added, while she tinkled her softest and keenest: "You're a
poet!"

With a gay wave, which dismissed him so easily that she resented his
going, she turned, stepped warily into the cramped room, and stood
transfixed with remorse for her tardiness and appalled and heart-wrung.
The foot of the berth was by the door. There old Joy stood silently
weeping. At its head knelt her mother in prayer and on it lay her
playmate brother peacefully gasping out his life. A flash of
retrospection told her he must have had the malady long before he had
confessed it and that something--something earlier than her
singing--yes, and later--not twins nor Gilmores nor river--oh,
something, what was it?--had kept her--these two long, long days--blind.

"Ah, you! _you_!" she dumbly cried, all at once aflame with the Hayle
gift for invective. "You stone image! 'To help you,' indeed! _You_! As
if you--as if I--I won't, you born tyrant! 'Help you'--against my own
kin! I will not--ever again. We're _quits_ for good and all."

XLII

AGAINST KIN

"Ramsey," said the boy, his voice gone to a shred, "you're good--to come
back in--in time. Ain't you going--to laugh? It'd be all right. Oh,
sis'"--the sunken eyes lighted up--"it's come to me, sissy, it's come.
I've got religion, Ramsey. I'm going straight to the arms of Jesus.
Sissy dear, I wish"--he waited for strength--"I could see
the--twins--just a minute or two----"

"Why, you shall, honey. I'll go bring 'em."

"Wish you would--and Hugh Courteney. It's the last----"

"Honey boy, th'ain't room for so many at once. And it ain't your last
anything; you' going to get well."

His eyes closed, his brows knit. The tearful mother rose and looked at
her. The glance was kind, yet remorse tore the girl's heart again. "Go,"
said her mother. "Joy, she'll go with you. Bring the three."

"My last"--the boy whispered on--"last chance--to do some'--something
worthy of"--he faintly smiled to his mother--"of Gideon's Band."

The door opened and closed and the two were alone. At his sign she
knelt, took his clammy hand, and bent close that he might flutter out
his hurried words with least effort.

"She sang it finely!" he w