let’s all try to be happy this time and enjoy a quiet Christmas. You never know!” She shook her head, unable to continue. Her eyes were wet. “It may be the last time we’re all together. The old trouble! The old trouble!” she said hoarsely, turning to him.
“What old trouble?” he said angrily. “Good God, why are you so mysterious?”
“My heart!” she whispered, with a brave smile. “I’ve said nothing to any one. But last week—I thought I was gone.” This was delivered in a boding whisper.
“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “You’ll be here when the rest of us are rotten.”
Helen burst into a raucous angry laugh, looking at his sullen face, and prodding him roughly with her big fingers.
“K-K-K-K-K-K-K! Did you ever know it to fail? Did you? If you come to her with one of your kidneys gone, she’s always got something worse the matter with her. No, sir! I’ve never known it to fail!”
“You may laugh! You may laugh!” said Eliza with a smile of watery bitterness. “But I may not be here to laugh at much longer.”
“Good heavens, mama!” the girl cried irritably. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not the sick one! Papa’s the sick one. He’s the one that needs attention. Can’t you realize that—he’s dying. He may not last the winter out. I’m the sick one! You’ll be here long after we’re both gone.”
“You never know,” said Eliza mysteriously. “You never know who’ll be the first one to go. Only last week, there was Mr. Cosgrave, as fine a looking man as—”
“They’re off!” Eugene screamed with a crazy laugh, stamping up and down the kitchen in a frenzy. “By God! They’re off!”
At this moment, one of the aged harpies, of whom the house always sheltered two or three during the grim winter, lurched from the hall back into the door-space. She was a large raw-boned hag, a confirmed drug-eater, who moved by a violent and dissonant jerking of her gaunt limbs, pawing abruptly at the air with a gnarled hand.
“Mrs. Gant,” said she, writhing her loose gray lips horribly before
