fine, the doctor thinks. She's got a little
temperature, but a child's likely to have fever for any little thing."

He waited some time before putting the next question, rallying his
strength for the ordeal of speech.

"Don't s'pose--'twould do for me--to see her?"

Persis looked at him with a curious tightening of the lips, in her eyes
an unaccustomed blending of tenderness and pride.

"You shall see her, if you want to, Joel. 'Tain't going to hurt
her--to speak of."

From the room across the hall she brought Celia, a chrysalid child,
sleeping heavily, closely wrapped in an old plaid shawl, and laid her
on Joel's bed. Celia's thatch of black hair fell untidily across the
pillow. The fever gave her olive skin an unwonted color. Joel made an
ineffectual effort to lift his arm. Then as he desisted, sighing, his
sister gently lifted his hand till it touched the hot fingers of the
sleeping child.

"They're--such little--things--Persis." His labored breath made speech
fragmentary. "It's funny, how--they fill up--all the room in--a man's
heart."

"Yes, I know, Joel. But I guess maybe you'd better not talk."

"Makes me think of--what the Good Book says, Persis. 'A little
child--'"

He did not finish the quotation. After Persis was sure that he was
asleep, she carried Celia back to her bed and renewed her watch. The
doctor came in about ten o'clock and stood for a little with his
fingers on his patient's pulse.

"You'd better not lose your sleep, Doctor," Persis suggested, glancing
at the weary young face. "You go into the spare room and I'll call you
if I need you."

"I'm not tired," the doctor answered. "I'd as soon sit here for a
while." But he did not meet her eye.

It was an hour later when the struggling breath lengthened into a sigh,
deep-drawn and profound, irresistibly suggestive of untold relief. The
doctor was at the bedside instantly, but after a moment he laid the
limp hand gently down and turned away.

Persis sank upon her knees, putting her hands over her face down which
the tears were streaming, those strange illogical tears which are
life's tribute to death, however it may come. Yet even while she wept,
phrases of thanksgiving sang melodiously through her brain and echoed
in her heart. For to this brother of hers it had been given to redeem
a life of weakness and failure by a single heroic sacrifice and to die
a man.

CHAPTER XXII

EAVESDROPPING

The winter follow