ered back when it was ended; then wrote out the message rapidly
upon a blank, folded, directed it, and went to the open street door.

"Sim! Here--quick!" she called to a youth opposite, in a
stable-yard.

"This has got to go down to the Argenter Place. And mind how you
give it. It's bad news."

"How can _I_ mind?" said Sim, gruffly. "I spose I must give it to
who comes."

"You might see somebody on the way, and speak a word; a neighbor, or
the minister, or somebody. 'Tain't fit for it to go right to her,
_I_ know. Telegraphs might as well be something else when they can,
besides lightning!"

"Donno's I can go travellin' round after 'em, if that's what you
mean," said Sim, putting the envelope in his rough breast pocket,
and turning off.

Sylvie was standing on the stone steps, bidding the Sherretts
good-by; Amy was just seated in the gig, and Rodney about to spring
in beside her, when Sim Atwill drove up the avenue in the rusty
covered wagon that did telegraph errands. Red Squirrel did not quite
like the sudden coming face to face, as Sim reined up in a hurry
just below the door, and Rodney had to pause and hold him in.

"A tellagrim for Mrs. Argenter," said Sim, seizing his opportunity,
and speaking to whom it might concern. "Eighty cents to pay, and I
'blieve it's bad news."

"O, Mr. Sherrett, stop, please!" cried Sylvie, turning white in the
dim light. "What shall I do? Won't you wait a minute, Miss Sherrett,
until I see? Won't you come in again? Mother will be frightened to
death, and I'm all alone."

"Jump out, Amy; I'll take Squirrel round," was Rodney's answer. "Go
right up; I'll come."

And as Sylvie took the thin envelope that held so much, and the two
girls silently passed up into the piazza again, he paid Sim the
eighty cents which nobody thought of at that moment or ever again,
and sent him off.

Sylvie and Amy stopped under the softly bright hall lantern. Mrs.
Argenter was up-stairs in her dressing room, quite at the end of the
long upper hall, changing her lace sack for a cashmere, before
coming out into the evening air again.

"I think I shall open it myself," whispered Sylvie, tremulously; "it
would seem worse to mother, whatever it is, coming this way. She has
such a horror of a telegram." She looked at it on both sides, drew a
little shivering breath, and paused again.

"Is it wicked, do you think, to wish it may be--only grandma,
perhaps? Do you suppose it could _possibly_ be--my _f