Neither heard the door open nor saw Angy standing on the threshold, half paralyzed with fear and amazement, thinking that she was witnessing the mad delirium of a dying man, until she called out her husband's name. At the sound of her frightened voice, Abe stopped short and reached for the blanket with which to cover himself. "Naow don't git skeered, Mother, don't git skeered," he abjured her. "I'm all right in my head. Cap'n Sam'l here, he brung me some wonderful medicine. He--" "Blossy said you did!" interrupted Angy, a light of intense gratitude flashing across her face as she turned eagerly to Darby. "Lemme see the bottle." "I chucked it out o' the winder," affirmed Samuel without winking, and Abe hastened to draw Angy's attention back to himself. "See, Mother, I kin stand as good as anybody; hain't got no fever; I kin walk alone. Yew seen me dancin' jest naow, tew. An' ef I had that pesky leetle banty rooster of a doctor here, I'd kick him all the way deown-stairs. Cap'n Sam'l's wuth twenty-five o' him." "Yew kept the perscription, didn't yer, cap'n?" demanded Angy. "Naow ef he should be took ag'in an'--" Samuel turned away and coughed. "Mother, Mother," cried Abe, "shet the door an' come set deown er all the sisters'll come a-pilin' in. I've had a invite, I have!" Angy closed the door and came forward, her wary suspicious eye trailing from the visitor to her husband. "Hy-guy, ain't it splendid!" Abe burst forth. "Me an' Cap'n Sam'l here is a-goin' over ter Bleak Hill fer a week." "Bleak Hill in December!" Angy cried, aghast. "Naow, see here, Father," resolutely, "medicine er no medicine--" "He's got ter git hardened up," firmly interposed Dr. Darby; "it'll be the makin' o' him." Angy turned on Samuel with ruffled feathers. "He'll freeze ter death. Yew shan't--" Here Abe's stubborn will, so rarely set against Angy's gentle persistence, rose up in defiance: "We're a-gwine on a reg'lar A No. 1 spree with the boys, an' no women-folks is a-goin' ter stop us neither." "When?" asked Angy faintly, feeling Abe's brow, but to her surprise finding it cool and healthy. "Ter-morrer!" proclaimed Samuel; whereupon Abe looked a little dubious and lifted up his two feet, wrapped as they were in the blanket, to determine the present strength of his legs. "Don't yer think yer'd better make it day after ter-morrer?" he ventured. "Or 'long erbout May er June?" Angy hastily amended. Samuel gave an exasperated grunt. "See here, whose spree is this?" Abe demanded of the little old wife. She sighed, then resolved on strategy: "Naow, Abe, ef yew be bound an' possessed ter go ter the Beach, yew go; but I'm a-goin' a-visitin' tew, an' I couldn't git the pair o' us ready inside a week. I'm a-goin' deown ter see Blossy. She ast me jist naow, pendin', she says, Cap'n Sam'l here cures Abe up ernough ter git him off. I thought she was crazy then." Samuel knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the window-sill and arose to go.