ust, unmerciful thoughts of insulted
youth mingled with the generous and beautiful sensations of her triumph.

* * * * *

'Nay, it's all over,' said Meshach when Twemlow and Leonora entered.

'What!' Leonora exclaimed, glancing quickly at Arthur Twemlow as if for
support in a crisis.

'Doctor's gone but just this minute. Her's gotten over it.'

For a moment she had thought that Aunt Hannah was dead. John's anxious
excitement had communicated itself to her; she had imagined the worst
possibilities. Now the sensation of relief took her unawares, and she
was obliged to sit down suddenly.

In the little parlour wizened Meshach sat by the hob as he always sat,
warming one hand at the fire, and looking round sideways at the tall
visitors in their rich evening attire. Leonora heard Twemlow say
something about a heart attack, and the thick hard veins on Aunt
Hannah's wrist.

'Ay!' Meshach went on, employing the old dialect, a sign with him of
unusual agitation. 'I brought Dr. Hawley with me, he was at yon show.
And when us got here Hannah was lying on th' floor, just there, with her
head on this 'ere hearthrug. Susan, th' woman, told us as th' missis
said she felt as if she were falling down, and then down her falls. She
was staring hard at th' ceiling, with eyes fit to burst, and her face as
white as a sheet. Doctor lifts her up and puts her in a chair. Bless us!
How her did gasp! And her lips were blue. "Hannah!" I says. Her heard
but her couldna' answer. Her limbs were all of a tremble. Then her
sighed, and fetched up a long breath or two. "Where am I, Meshach?" her
says, "what's amiss?" Doctor told her for stick her tongue out, and her
could do that, and he put a candle to her eyes. Her's in bed now.
Susan's sitting with her.'

'I'll go up and see if I can do anything,' said Leonora, rising.

'No,' Meshach stopped her. 'You'll happen excite her. Doctor said her
was to go to sleep, and he's to send in a soothing draught. There's no
danger--not now--not till next time. Her mun take care, mun Hannah.'

'Then it is the heart?' Leonora asked.

'Ay! It's the heart.'

Twemlow and Leonora sat silent, embarrassed in the little parlour with
its antimacassars, its stiff chairs, its high mantelpiece, and the glass
partition which seemed to swallow up like a pit the rays from the
hissing gas-jet over the table. The image of the diminutive frail
creature concealed upstairs obsessed them, and L