"He ain't coughin' any more--he's asleep. I got it over him. Now get all your clo'es, Molly, and pile 'em on top. We can get along." Steve lay still. His first impulse was to cry out that they had made a mistake--that Jerry was next door; his next was to slip into Jerry's room and pile the quilt on him. Then he checked himself--the first would alarm and mortify the girls, and the second would be like robbing them of the credit of their generous act. Jerry might wake and the girls would hear, and explanations follow and all the pleasure of their sacrifice be spoiled. No, he'd hand it back to the girls, and say he was much obliged but he didn't need it. Again he stopped--this time with a sudden pull-up. Going into a chorus girl's room, under any pretence whatever, in a hotel at night! No, sir-ee, Bob! Not for Stephen! He had been there; none of that in his! All this time the quilt was choking him--his breath getting shorter every minute, as if he was being slowly smothered. A peculiar hotness began to creep over the skin of his throat and a small lump to rise near his Adam's apple, followed by a slight moistening of the eyes--all new symptoms to Steve, new since his boyhood. Suddenly there flashed into his mind the picture of a low-roofed garret room, sheltering a trundle-bed tucked away under the slant of the shingles. In the dim light where he lay he caught the square of the small window, the gaunt limbs of the butternut beyond, and could hear, as he listened, the creak of its branches bending in the storm. All about were old-fashioned things--a bureau with brass handles; a spinning-wheel; ropes of onions; a shelf of apples; an old saddle; and a rocking-chair with one arm gone and the bottom half out. A soft tread was heard upon the stairs, a white figure stole in, and a warm hand nestling close to his cheeks tucked the border of a quilt under his chin. Then came a voice. "I thought you might be cold, son." With a bound Steve sprang from the bed. For an instant he sat on the edge of the hard mattress, his eyes on the floor, as if in deep thought. "Those two girls lying there freezing, and all to get that feller warm!" he muttered. "You're a dog, Stephen Dodd--that's what you are--a yellow dog!"