“How’s Jack?” said Aladdin.

“He comes twice every day to ask about you,” said Mrs. Brackett.  “He’s livin’ with my brother-in-law.”

“That’s good,” said Aladdin.  He lay back and dozed.  After a while he opened his eyes.

“Mrs. Brackett-”

“What is it, deary?” The good woman had been herself on the point of dozing, but was instantly alert.

“Am I going to die?”

“You goin’ to die!” She tried to make her voice indignant, but it broke.

“I want to know.”

“He wants to know, good land!” exclaimed Mrs. Brackett.

“If a man’s going to die,” said Aladdin, aeat-sixteen, “he wants to know, because he has things that have to be done.”

“Doctor said you wasn’t to talk much,” said Mrs. Brackett.

“If I’ve got to die,” said Aladdin, abruptly, “I’ve got to see Margaret.”

A woman in a blue wrapper, muddy slippers, her gray hair disheveled, hatless, her eyes bright and wild, burst suddenly upon Hannibal St. John where he sat in his library reading in the book called “Hesperides.”

“Senator St. John,” she began rapidly, “Aladdin O’Brien’s sick in my house, and the last thing he said was, ’I’ve got to see Margaret’; and he’s dyin’ wantin’ to see her, and I’ve come for her, and she’s got to come.”

It was a tribute to St. John’s genius that in spite of her incoherent utterance he understood precisely what the woman was driving at.

“You say he’s dying?” he said.

“Doctor’s given up hope.  He’s had a relapse since this mornin’, and she’s got to come right now if she’s to see him at all.”

The senator hesitated for once.

“It’s got nothin’ to do with the proprieties,” said Mrs. Brackett, sternly, “nor what he was to her, nor her to him; it’s a plain case of humanity and—­”

“What is the nature of the sickness?” asked the senator.

“It’s fever—­”

“Is it contagious?” asked the senator.

“No, it ain’t!” almost shrieked the old lady.  “And what if it was?”

“Of course if it were contagious she couldn’t go,” said the senator.

“It ain’t contagious, and, what’s more, he once laid down his life for her on the log, that time.”

“If you assure me the fever is not contagious—­”

“You’ll let her come—­”

“It seems nonsense,” said the senator.  “They are only children, and I don’t want her to get silly ideas.”

“Only children!” exclaimed Mrs. Brackett.  “Senator, give me the troubles of the grown-ups, childbirth, and losing the first-born with none to follow, the losing of husband and mother, and the approach of old age,—­give me them and I’ll bear them, but spare me the sorrows and trials of little children which we grown-ups ain’t strong enough to bear.  You can say I said so,” she finished defiantly.

The senator bowed in agreement.

“I believe you are right,” he said.  “I will take you home in my carriage, Mrs.—­”