"No? But, never mind now, Jim," said Maggie, ostentatiously
ignoring, after the fashion of her sex, the trouble she had
provoked; "but to think--that--that--you thought"--(sobbing).

"But I didn't, Mag"--(caressingly).

With this very vague and impotent conclusion, Maggie permitted
herself to be drawn beside her brother, and for a few moments they
plumed each other's ruffled feathers, and smoothed each other's
lifted crests, like two beautiful young specimens of that halcyon
genus to which they were popularly supposed to belong. At the end
of half an hour Jim rose, and, yawning slightly, said in a
perfunctory way:

"Where's the book?"

The book in question was the Bible. It had been the self-imposed
custom of these two young people to read aloud a chapter every
night as their one vague formula of literary and religious
discipline. When it was produced, Maggie, presuming on his
affectionate and penitential condition, suggested that to-night he
should pick out "suthin' interestin'." But this unorthodox
frivolity was sternly put aside by Jim--albeit, by way of
compromise, he agreed to "chance it," i. e., open its pages at
random.

He did so. Generally he allowed himself a moment's judicious pause
for a certain chaste preliminary inspection necessary before
reading aloud to a girl. To-night he omitted that modest