"That wouldn't have been a bad idea, only we shouldn't have been allowed." "Who could have hindered that? Who'd want an empty stable?" "Our cousin Archibald!" answered Hallam, with scornful emphasis. "I believe he feels as if he had a mortgage on our very souls. Indeed, he said I might sometime be able to earn enough to buy the place back, as well as pay all other debts. He said he couldn't live forever, and it was but fair he should have a few years' possession of 'his own.' He--Well, there's no use talking. I wish--I wish I were--" "No, no! you don't! No, you don't either, Hallam Kaye! I know what you began to say, and you shall not finish. You shall not die. You shall get well and strong and do all those things he said. I'm ashamed of myself that I cried. I felt last night as if my old life were all a beautiful dream, and that I had just waked up into a real world where I had to do things for myself and for others; not have others do for me any longer." "That was about the state of the case, I fancy." "Well, that isn't so bad. It shouldn't be, that is; for I have such health and strength and everything. Nothing matters so much as long as we are all together." "Nobody knows how long we shall be. I don't like these 'attacks' of father's, Amy. I'm afraid of them. It will kill him to live here." It needed but the possibility of giving comfort to somebody to arouse all Amy's natural hopefulness, and she commanded with a shake of her forefinger:-- "Hallam Kaye, you stop it! I won't have it! If you keep it up, I shall have to--to cuff you." "Try it!" cried the brother, already laughing at her fierce show of spirit; yet to tempt her audacity he thrust his fingers through her short curls and wagged her head playfully. She did not resent it; she could resent nothing Hallam ever did save that morbid talk of his. She had been fighting with this spirit ever since she could remember, and their brief "tussle" over, she crept closer to him along the old stone wall and begged:-- "Cleena has tied the burros out to graze in the weeds, and that will be their breakfast, and while we're waiting for ours, I wish you'd tell me all you know about 'Spite House.' I've heard it, of course, but it's all mixed up in my mind, and I don't see just where that cousin Archibald comes in." "Oh, he comes in easily enough. He's a descendant of old Jacob Ingraham as well as of the house of Kaye. I believe it was in this way: our great-grandfather Thomas Kaye and Jacob were brothers-in-law, and there was some trouble about money matters." "Seems to me all the mean, hateful troubles _are_ about money. I don't see why it was ever made."