"She sang it finely!" he whispered. "She'd 'a' known we heard it if she'd 'a' thought. Wish you'd sing a verse of it. It's a hymn, you know—or was. The chorus is—yet. Anyhow, it's our song. Oh, I'd like to live on and be a real true Hayle—a Gideon! I hope—hope Hugh Courteney'll—live. Just think! he was on the Quakeress when Uncle Dan—.... He's going to do big things some day. Mother—want to tell you something." She bent closer. He whispered on:
"I wish Hugh Courteney'd live and—marry sis'."
His eyes reclosed and the mother drew back, but he whispered on with lids unlifted: "Sing—a verse or two—or just the chorus, won't you?"
As softly as to an infant fallen asleep she sang, in her Creole accent, with eyes streaming:
"Do you billong to Gideon' ban'?
Yere's my 'eart an' yere's my 'an'."
Outside, meantime, before old Joy had quite left the closed door, another, the second aft of it, opened and the texas tender stepped out. A fellow servant within shut it, and he started for a near-by stair, but checked up, amazed, to let Ramsey hasten on for the same point.
But Ramsey halted. "How's the bishop?" she asked him.
"Good Lawd!" he gasped, and then tittered at himself. "I ax yo' pahdon, miss, I neveh know de Hayles twins 'uz double twins, male 'n' female. You ax me——?"
"The bishop; how is he now?"