"Yes, sir," said the pilot, "she's Hayle's _Wild Girl_." Not waiting to hear that she was known by her "front skylights standin' so fur aft of her chimbleys," Ramsey wheeled to fly. But instantly she recovered and went with severe decorum, saying quiet nothings to Hugh as he followed, until at the sick-room door again she turned. "I'm willing he should help us, Mr. Hugh, if mom-a and Basile are. I'll send him word by mammy Joy. Mr. Hugh--what is it he wants to know about the twins?" Hugh was taken aback. "Why, it's nothing--now. It was as pure nonsense as those verses. Ask him. He can tell if he chooses; I can't." There was a pause. Her eyes gave him lively attention, but one ear was bent to the door. "I hope Basile is better," he added. "I'm sure he is; he's so much quieter." She felt a stir of conscience, loitering thus, yet--"Mr. Hugh, do you think diffidence is the same as modesty?" "Certainly not." "I'm--" She meditated.... "I'm glad of that.... I never was diffident a moment in my life." "You never had need to be," said Hugh very quietly. "They go together, don't they, diffidence and modesty?" "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----"