"Even a king might envy us this fire of pine cones, mightn't he? Isn't it sweet and woodsy? and so bright. I've gathered bushels and bushels of them, while you were away, and we can have all the fun we want up here. So now--can't you just begin and tell, Hal dear? Part of it I guess, but start as you always do: 'I went from here--' and keep right on till you get back again to me and--this." She purposely made her tone light, but she was not surprised when her answer was a smothered sob. Indeed, there was such a lump in her own throat that she had to swallow twice before she could say:-- "No, darling, you needn't tell one word. I know it all--all--all; and I can't bear it. I won't--I will not have it so!" Then she turned and buried her face in the pillow beside her brother's, crying so passionately that he had to become comforter himself; and his thin fingers stroked her hair until she grew ashamed of her weakness and looked up again, trying to smile. "Forgive me, brotherkin. I'm such a baby, and I meant to be so brave! If I could only take your lameness on myself, and give you my own strong, active legs!" "Don't, Amy! Besides, how often have you said that very same thing? Yet it isn't any use. Nothing is of any use. Life isn't, I fancy." Even the vehement Amy was shocked by this, and her tears stopped, instantly. "Why, Hal!" "Sounds wicked, doesn't it? Well, I feel wicked. I feel like, was it Job or one of his friends? that it would be good to 'curse God and die.' Dying would be so much easier than living." The girl sprang up, clinching her brown hands, and staring at her brother defiantly. "Hallam Kaye, don't you talk like that! Don't you dare! Suppose God heard you? Suppose He took you at your word and made you die just now, this instant? What then?" Hallam smiled, wanly, "I won't scare you by saying what then, girlie. If He did, I suppose it would all be right. Everything is right--to the folks who don't have to suffer the thing. Even the doctor--and I liked him as much as I envied him--even he preached to me and bade me not to mind, to 'forget.' Hmm, I wish _he_ could feel, just for one little minute, the helplessness that I must feel always, eternally." Hallam was dearer to his sister than any other human being, and the despair in her idol's tone promptly banished her anger against his irreverence. She went down on her knees and caught away the arm with which he had hidden his face, kissing him again and again. "Oh! there will be some way out of this misery, laddie. There must be. It wouldn't be right, that anybody as clever and splendid as you should be left a cripple for life. I won't believe it. I won't!" "How like father you are!" Amy's head tossed slightly, and a faint protest came into her eyes, but was banished as soon because of its disloyalty. "Am I? In what way? and why shouldn't I be?" "You never know when you're down nor why you shouldn't have all that you want."