"Perhaps then," I murmured gravely, with sphinx face, "I might stay. I have to ask so much, Vesty, you see. All my life seems to be asking, not giving." "I don't know who you are!" said she, with puzzled brow, the utter frankness of Basin speech escaping her unawares. "What I thought first, when I saw you--I never mind that now. And you are poor and all alone, and you never make anything of yourself--but somehow I always think you are pretending; somehow--I think--you are stronger than us all." "You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. "And, Vesty," I said, "where are you going now?" "Why, to Uncle Benny's! Didn't you know?" exclaimed the girl eagerly, with whom the realities of life were always pressing, stern. "He stood out in the water, _that day_, helping get the men in, and he was around that evening, singing, without any dry clothes or fire; nobody thought, then. And you know he 's had a cough ever since, and now--he 's sick." A thought smote me. "He won't lead the children to school any more, then?" Vesty's lip quivered. "Come," she said; "he has asked for you." At sight of Vesty with her child and me, Uncle Benny, to whom the shadows were coming as to the truly sane, without grief or surprise, touched his unribboned throat with feeble apology. "I look dreadful," he murmured. That was not troubling him! He had a secret beyond all that, I saw. "There 's been ten in to call to-day," he exulted sweetly, with folded hands of satisfaction, death's bloom high in his cheeks; "ten!--ahem!--to call." Vesty looked at me with her sad smile. "It is because we love you, Uncle Benny," she said, "and you took--take such care of the children. Who?" she asked, for his mind was on it. "Mother," said Uncle Benny, since he was sane now, "and"--he mentioned a number of the living Basins, and went on, in the same tone--"and Fluke and Gurd." Vesty looked at him with touching sorrow and despair, being troubled and not sane. "They played," he said, his hands moving with the recollection of the melody; "they played wonderful--but sometimes it was an organ!" "Good!" I said, Vesty stood so pale. "We are getting health, I see. We are on the straight road now." Uncle Benny, hearing my voice, beckoned me. "All the things in the drawer!" he said, "because you were 'flicted." His eyes shone lovingly and compassionately on me. "All for you. But go and see!" Enough surely to relieve all physical defects! The worn and treasured blue necktie, for one thing; a little pocket hand-glass, a pin-cushion devoted to the tender ingathering of strayed and crooked pins, some sprays of mint and lavender among the rest.