"Ah, Master Lance, 'twas your doing. You always was the mischief."

"No indeed, Sibby, the long boy did it all by himself, before ever I
was in the house; but I'll bring him back again."

"May I not stay a little longer, Sibby," said Clement, rather
piteously, "to hear Lance sing? I have been looking forward to it
all day."

"If ye'll take yer jelly, sir," said Sibby, "as it's fainting ye'll
be, and bringing our hearts into our mouths."

So Sibby administered her jelly, and heard histories of Lance's
children, then, after exacting a promise that Master Lance should
only sing once, she withdrew, as peremptory and almost as happy as in
her once crowded nursery.

"What shall that once be, Clem?" asked Lance.

"'Lead, kindly Light.'"

"Is it not too much?" he inquired, glancing towards his widowed
sister.

"I want it as much as he does," she answered fervently.

At thirty-eight Lance's voice was, if possible, more perfect in
sweetness, purity, and expression than it had been at twenty, and
never had the poem, connected with all the crises of their joint