"Certainly, Aunt Pat,"--and she slipped the ring from her finger, passed it across the table, and folded her hands quietly upon the white cloth. She did not look at me, but I saw her breath come and go quickly. If the rings were not the same them we were undone. This thought gripped the three of us, and I heard my cup beating a tattoo on the edge of my saucer in the tense silence, while Miss Pat bent close to the candle before her and studied the ring, turning it over slowly. Rosalind half opened her lips to speak, but Sister Margaret's snowy hand clasped the girl's fingers. The little circlet of gold with its beautiful green stone had been to me one of the convincing items of the remarkable resemblance between the cousins; but if there should be some differentiating mark Miss Pat was not so stupid as to overlook it. Miss Pat put down the ring abruptly, and looked at Rosalind and then smiled quizzically at me. "You are a clever boy, Larry." Then, turning to Rosalind, Miss Pat remarked, with the most casual air imaginable: "Helen pronounces either with the long _e_. I noticed at luncheon that you say eyether. Where's your father, Rosalind?" [Illustration: "Where's your father, Rosalind?"] My eyes were turning from her to Rosalind when, on her last word, as though by prearranged signal, far across the water, against the dark shadows of the lake's remoter shore, a rocket's spent ball broke and flung its stars against the night. I spoke no word, but leaped over the stone balustrade and ran to the boat-house where Gillespie waited. CHAPTER XXIV "WITH MY HANDS" Maybe in spite of their tameless days Of outcast liberty, They're sick at heart for the homely ways Where their gathered brothers be. And oft at night, when the plains fall dark And hills loom large and dim, For the shepherd's voice they mutely hark, And their souls go out to him. Meanwhile "Black sheep! black sheep!" we cry, Safe in the inner fold: And maybe they hear, and wonder why, And marvel, out in the cold. --_Richard Burton_. Gillespie was smoking his pipe on the boat-house steps. He had come over from the village in his own launch, which tossed placidly beside mine. Ijima stepped forward promptly with a lantern as I ran out upon the planking of the pier. "Jump into my launch, Gillespie, and be in a hurry!" and to my relief he obeyed without his usual parley. Ijima cast us off, the engine sputtered a moment, and then the launch got away. I bade Gillespie steer, and when we were free of the pier told him to head for the Tippecanoe.