itating step, strongly in contrast with
her usual quick bustling walk. She had before felt rather aggrieved that
the doctor should be the first to break the news; but she now felt
the difficulty of the task, and would gladly have been spared the
responsibility.

"I have been expecting you for the last quarter of an hour, Abijah,"
Mrs. Mulready said querulously. "You know how I hate to have the room
untidy after I have dressed.

"Why, what's the matter?". she broke off sharply as she noticed Abijah's
face. "Why, you have been crying!"

"Yes, ma'am, I have been crying," Abijah said unsteadily, "but I don't
know as ever I shall cry again, for I have heard such good news as will
last me the rest of my whole life."

"What news, Abijah?" Mrs. Mulready asked quickly. "What are you making a
mystery about, and what is that paper in your hand?"

"Well, ma'am, God has been very good to us all. I knew as he would be
sooner or later, though sometimes I began to doubt whether it would be
in my time, and it did break my heart to see Maister Ned going about
so pale and unnatural like for a lad like him, and to know as there was
people as thought that he was a murderer. And now, thank God, it is all
over."

"All over! what do you mean, Abijah?" Mrs. Mulready exclaimed, rising
suddenly from her invalid chair.

"What do you mean by saying that it is all over?" and she seized the old
nurse's arm with an eager grasp.

"Don't excite yourself so, mistress. You have been sore tried, but it is
over now, and today all the world will know as Maister Ned is proved to
be innocent. This here paper is a copy of the confession of the man as
did it, and who is, they say, dead by this time. It was taken all right
and proper afore a magistrate."

"Innocent!" Mrs. Mulready gasped in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
"Did you tell me, Abijah, that my boy, my boy Ned, is innocent?"

"I never doubted as he was innocent, ma'am; but now, thank God, all the
world will know it. There, ma'am, sit yourself down. Don't look like
that. I know as how you must feel, but for mercy sake don't look like
that."

Mrs. Mulready did not seem to hear her, did not seem to notice, as she
passively permitted herself to be seated in the chair, while Abijah
poured out a glass of wine. Her face was pale and rigid, her eyes wide
open, her expression one of horror rather than relief.

"Innocent! Proved innocent!" she murmured. "What must he think of
me--me, his mother