"I believe there's another bed in the attic that we could bring down, if she wishes." "Ben's?" "Oh, no! That hath remained in Reuben's room--their room, I'd rather say. I don't know that Reuben ever said anything of it, but--you can imagine no one of us would suggest taking it out." "Of course. I spoke something foolish. I do so often." "Not at all. It is--may I say this, Charity?--a blessing, that you do come to us here. In this house we are, all but Reuben--oh, how shall I say it?--old, dusty, something discouraged perhaps. There was so much of youth and gaiety, the which we took for granted when we had it, when Ben was here, the two of them alway in some harmless commotion or other--why, merely to hear them talk together was--was.... What are you sewing, Charity? Something for the--for what I believe fair young maids do call a bride chest?" "I am no-way fair, Mr. Hibbs. And--honestly now, doth this appear to you like an item of female apparel?" "Oh! Marry it don't, now you hold it up--you had it bunched under your hand so I couldn't see." "A nightshirt of Mr. Kenny's, and I only trust I may mend this hole so it won't chafe him. He wears them out in the back, you see, lying on them constantly, and--oh, the fidgeting that's all he's able to do. I pray you, Mr. Hibbs, would you sit the other side of the lamp? You're in peril of my elbow, besides shutting off the light." "Of course--clumsy of me.... How deftly your little hands do work at whatever they find, Charity!... _Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora...._" "I sew very badly, Mr. Hibbs, and I have no Latin." "Forgive me. I think, though, you sew excellent well." "Ha!" "'Twas only a line of Tibullus that cometh now and then to my mind. _Et teneam moriens deficiente manu...._ I never read Tibullus with the boys. Not altogether suited, I felt, to their time of life. And yet sometimes, as in those particular lines, my dear, he is quite innocent, indeed expressing sentiments appropriate to a man of honorable feeling. 'May I'--(saith Tibullus, my dear)--'may I look on thee when cometh my last hour, and may I hold thy hand as I sink dying!'" "I must tell Kate this one is nearly past mending, but if she'll make a pattern for me I believe I could follow it in my blundering fashion. He ought to have a change of them for every day. I know a place on Sudbury Street where they have better material than this, and cheap." "I recall some other lines from the same poem--_me mea paupertas vita traducat inerti, dum meus adsiduo luceat igne focus...._ 'Let the humble fortune that is proper to me lead me through a quiet way of life, if only my hearth may glow with an unfailing fire!' You'd suppose that the sentiment of an aging man, wouldn't you? And yet they tell that Tibullus, he died young.... Charity...." "Yes, Mr. Hibbs?"