of Nancy Simmons."

"Don't talk so loud, Nancy, for mercy's sake. If the boy hears you,
he'll begin to take on, and we sha'n't get a wink of sleep. Don't let
'em know what you're goin' to do with 'em till the last minute, or
you'll have trouble as sure as we sit here."

"Oh, they are sound asleep," responded Mrs. Simmons, with an uneasy look
at the half-open door. "I went in and dragged a pillow out from under
Timothy's head, and he never budged. He was sleepin' like a log, and so
was Gay. Now, shut up, Et, and let me get three winks myself. You take
the lounge, and I'll stretch out in two chairs. Wake me up at eight
o'clock, if I don't wake myself; for I'm clean tired out with all this
fussin' and plannin', and I feel stupid enough to sleep till kingdom
come."

SCENE II.

_Number Three, Minerva Court, First floor back._

LITTLE TIMOTHY JESSUP ASSUMES PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

When the snores of the two watchers fell on the stillness of the
death-chamber, with that cheerful regularity that betokens the sleep of
the truly good, a little figure crept out of the bed in the adjoining
room and closed the door noiselessly, but with trembling fingers;
stealing then to the window to look out at the dirty street and the gray
sky over which the first faint streaks of dawn were beginning to creep.

It was little Timothy Jessup (God alone knows whether he had any right
to that special patronymic), but not the very same Tim Jessup who had
kissed the baby Gay in her little crib, and gone to sleep on his own
hard bed in that room, a few hours before. As he stood shivering at the
window, one thin hand hard pressed upon his heart to still its beating,
there was a light of sudden resolve in his eyes, a new-born look of
anxiety on his unchildlike face.

"I will not have Gay protectioned and reliefed, and I will not be taken
away from her and sent to a 'sylum, where I can never find her again!"
and with these defiant words trembling, half spoken, on his lips, he
glanced from the unconscious form in the crib to the terrible door,
which might open at any moment and divide him from his heart's delight,
his darling, his treasure, his only joy, his own, own baby Gay.

But what should he do? Run away: that was the only solution of the
matter, and no very difficult one either. The cruel women were asleep;
the awful Thing that had been Flossy would never speak again; and no one
else in Minerva Court cared enough for them to pur