"Yes, how about the songs?" asked some one. "They're no servant's part and they're out before the curtain." "She must sing them," replied Hugh. "They won't keep her long and they involve no contact." "Right!" exclaimed one. "Good!" said another, and yet another. "Without them we might as well give up the whole business." From the curtains through which he had been peering the actor glanced back. "Those footlights are capital," he said to his wife, and then, for the joy of all: "We've got a full house!" The wife looked, turned quickly, and murmured to him: "Hayle's twins in the front row." "Yes," he said, absently again, "with war in their eyes.... Now, Mr. Hugh, if you'll send for Miss Hayle----" "Harriet's gone for her," replied his wife. "Here I am," spoke Ramsey at the door of a stateroom appropriated as a passageway. And assuredly there she was; but by the magic of dress, through the trained cunning of Mrs. Gilmore's mind and "Harriet's" hand, and even more by the imprint of her new weight of experience, she was Ramsey transformed, grown beautiful. An added year was in her face. A chastened tenderness both lighted and shaded it, half veiling yet half reasserting its innocent hardihood. The astonished amateurs hailed her with a clapping of hands, in which, it pleased her deeply to notice, Hugh Courteney, staring, took no share. Beyond the curtain the unseen audience answered with a pounding of heels and canes in good-natured impatience. Gilmore hurriedly waved away all the lads but Hugh, and Mrs. Gilmore all the girls but Ramsey. To her she glided while Hugh and her husband conferred on some last point. "Well, dear," she said, pressing her backward into the stateroom, "are you ready?" "No, dear Mrs. Gilmore, please, no, I'm not." "Ah, yes, you are. You'll go on from"--they passed out and entered the next room forward--"from here. And mark! when you find nothing between you and the people but the footlights, and their glare blinds you, don't stand close over them trying to see, or they'll make you look scared and pale, and you're not scared the least bit, are you?" "I don't know," laughed Ramsey, softly, through tears. "I never was, before; never had sense enough, mom-a says. But, oh, I know I'm ashamed. I'm that 'shamed that I wouldn't wonder if I'm scared too. Oh, dear Mrs. Gilmore, Basile's so sick! The doctors are doing all they can for him, and mom-a and mammy Joy are with him; but he's so tortured with pain, and with fright! And the bishop--he's pow'ful weak, as mammy Joy says. One of those sweet sisters--of charity--I got her up through the speaking-tube--oh, you know what I mean--and she's there now talking to him _so_ beautifully! And down on the lower deck, freight deck, Madame Marburg's sick too, and her son and the priest and the other sister are with her and with the other sick ones--there's a dozen of them!" The last words were to Gilmore as he and Hugh appeared at the outer door.