pipe
and pretended to read too. I shall never forget that my book was "Anne
Judge, Spinster," while his was a volume of "Blackwood." Every five
minutes his pipe went out, and sometimes the book lay neglected on his
knee as he stared at the fire. Then he would go out for five minutes and
come back again. It was late now, and I felt that I should like to go to
my bedroom and lock myself in. That, however, would have been selfish;
so we sat on defiantly. At last he started from his chair as some one
knocked at the door. I heard several people talking, and then loud above
their voices a younger one.

[Illustration]

When I came to myself, the first thing I thought was that they would ask
me to hold it. Then I remembered, with another sinking at the heart,
that they might want to call it after me. These, of course, were selfish
reflections; but my position was a trying one. The question was, what
was the proper thing for me to do? I told myself that my brother might
come back at any moment, and all I thought of after that was what I
should say to him. I had an idea that I ought to congratulate him, but
it seemed a brutal thing to do. I had not made up my mind when I heard
him coming down. He was laughing and joking in what seemed to me a
flippant kind of way, considering the circumstances. When his hand
touched the door I snatched at my book and read as hard as I could. He
was swaggering a little as he entered, but the swagger went out of him
as soon as his eye fell on me. I fancy he had come down to tell me,
and now he did not know how to begin. He walked up and down the room
restlessly, looking at me as he walked the one way, while I looked at
him as he walked the other way. At length he sat down again and took up
his book. He did not try to smoke. The silence was something terrible;
nothing was to be heard but an occasional cinder falling from the grate.
This lasted, I should say, for twenty minutes, and then he closed his
book and flung it on the table. I saw that the game was up, and closed
"Anne Judge, Spinster." Then he said, with affected jocularity: "Well,
young man, do you know that you are an uncle?" There was silence again,
for I was still trying to think out some appropriate remark. After a
time I said, in a weak voice. "Boy or girl?" "Girl," he answered. Then
I thought hard again, and all at once remembered something. "Both doing
well?" I whispered. "Yes," he said sternly. I felt that something great
was exp