this unnatural one lying
prone, half conscious, half dazed--she put her other hand over the one
that held hers, and sat there quietly waiting.

The minutes came to seem like hours, but Sissy sat motionless and Miss
Madigan left the room. Presently an eery humming came from Split's lips.
Then, mechanically, Sissy's fingers picked out on the spread the simple
little melody Split sang as in a dream.

"Play it," the sick girl whispered, pushing away the hand she had held.

Sissy jumped as though she had been discovered indulging in gross and
inexcusable sentimentality. She looked down at Split with a puzzled,
sheepish smile, wondering how long it had been since her sister had come
into the real world out of that fantastic one where marvelous things
might happen.

"Play it!" repeated Split, fretfully.

Sissy rose and walked softly into the front room. She fancied if she
took a long time, yet appeared about to obey, Split would forget her
desire and, left alone in the silence, would fall asleep. She opened the
piano softly and pulled out the stool. Then leisurely she pretended to
arrange the light and the piano-cover.

Split, quieted by her apparent compliance, lay back with a sigh of
content. Her mind, whose very apprehension of the delirium had excluded
other thoughts, dwelt now restfully upon the combination of easy mental
effort and soothing melody her "piece" meant to her. Besides, she was
ordering her junior about, using her illness as a club to beat down
remonstrance. Split was really on the way to being herself again.

After a bit she found that she was almost dozing off, and waked with an
indignant start to see Sissy stealing softly out of the room.

"Where are you going?" she demanded. "Why don't you play it when I tell
you to?"

For an instant Sissy rebelled. Then she looked at the passionate little
figure sitting tensely upright, at the white fever-circle about the dry
lips, at the short hair and the unnaturally bright, angry eyes. She went
back to the piano, sat down, and with her foot on the soft pedal, that
Aunt Anne might not hear, she began to play.

The melody was simple and light, with a little break in its sweetness.
Sissy's touch was childlike, but her impressionable temperament,
quickened by the strangeness of that dark room behind her, overflowed
into the melody her fingers brought out. The accompanying bass was
rhythmic, and the nervous, fevered child found mental and physical
occupation in