"Ho, ho! Another collection!"
"No, only admission fees. Six bits for the play, four bits for the dance."
Half offended, half amused, the bishop swelled. "And you ask me"—he laughed, but she had turned away and he reverted to the players—"on top of our prayers for God's mercy upon our bodies and souls you ask me to help get up a play and a dance!"
Eagerly, amid a general merriment that was not quite merry, the Gilmores answered with amused disclaimers for themselves and copious excuses for him. Ramsey's eyes, like Hugh's, were on the commodore and the senator, who were starting off together. The commodore's nod called Hugh and he moved to overtake them. The boy whom Hugh had sent to the texas, returning, sought to intercept him, but Hugh passed on and the messenger found Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to both servants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainly disturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stood addressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftily defensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, if our gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting a minister of the gospel," he began——
"Amen to dat!" said old Joy, and as Ramsey's eyes showed tears the speaker paused.
"All right," she quietly said. "Come to my sick brother. Won't you, please?"
"Why—why, yes, I—I will. Cer-certainly I will. Yet—really—if I'm forbidden to alarm him"—his smile could not hide his sense of mortal risk.
"Oh, he's already alarmed!"
"He's turrified!" softly said old Joy.
"Why, then, the moment we're through our meeting——"