y all come
down-stairs."

But when Nettie turned in again, after closing the door, into that house
so entirely changed in character by the solemn inmate who had entered
it, she was confronted by the amazed and troubled apparition of Mrs
Smith, half-dressed, and full of wonder and indignation. A gasping
exclamation of "Miss!" was all that good woman could utter. She had with
her own eyes perceived some of the "roughs" of Carlingford emerging from
her respectable door under Nettie's grave supervision, and yet could not
in her heart, notwithstanding appearances, think any harm of Nettie;
while, at the same time, a hundred alarms for the safety of her household
gods shook her soul. Nettie turned towards her steadily, with her face
pallid and her brilliant eyes heavy. "Hush," she said; "Susan knows
nothing yet. Let her have her rest while she can. We have been watching
for him all night, and poor Susan is sleeping, and does not know."

"Know what?--what has happened?--he's been and killed himself? Oh, miss,
don't you go for to say so!" cried Mrs Smith, in natural dismay and
terror.

"No," cried Nettie, with a long sigh that relieved her breast, "not so
bad as that, thank Heaven; but hush, hush! I cannot go and tell Susan
just yet--not just yet. Oh, give me a moment to get breath! For he is
dead! I tell you, _hush_!" cried Nettie, seizing the woman's hand, and
wringing it, in the extremity of her terror for alarming Susan. "Don't
you understand me? She is a widow, and she does not know--her husband
is dead, and she does not know. Have you no pity for her in your own
heart?"

"Lord ha' mercy! but wait till I call Smith," cried the alarmed
landlady, shrinking, yet eager to know the horribly interesting details
of that tragedy. She ran breathless up-stairs on that errand, while
Nettie went back to the door of the parlour, resolutely locked it, and
took away the key. "Nobody shall go gazing and talking over him, and
making a wonder of poor Fred," said Nettie to herself, shaking off from
her long eyelashes the tear which came out of the compunction of her
heart. "Poor Fred!" She sat down on one of the chairs of the little hall
beside that closed door. The children and their mother up-stairs still
slept unsuspicious; and their young guardian, with a world of thoughts
rising in her mind, sat still and pondered. The past was suddenly cut
off from the future by this dreadful unthought-of event. She had come to
a dead pause in tha