But I see by your eyes--so like your father's, but softer, my
dear, and less troublesome--that you will have the whole of it out, as
he would with me once when I told him a story for the sake of another
servant. It was just about a month before you were born, when the
trouble began to break on us. And when once it began, it never stopped
until all that were left ran away from it. I have read in the newspapers
many and many sad things coming over whole families, such as they
call 'shocking tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more
galling than what I had to see with my very own eyes.

"It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at Shoxford.
We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see to the truth of
some rumors which had reached him about our style of living. It was the
first time he had ever been there; for although he had very often been
invited, he could not bear to be under the roof of the daughter, as he
said, of his enemy. The Captain, just happening to come home on leave
for his autumn holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very
last place to expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not
pleased for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However,
they took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
nicely, as high-bred people do.

"What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except so
far as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was ready, to
celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his holiday; and the
old lord, having travelled far that day, was persuaded to sit down with
them. The five eldest children (making all except the baby, for you was
not born, miss, if you please) they were to have sat up at table, as
pretty as could be--three with their high cushioned stools, and two in
their arm-chairs screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with
rods in front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding,
which they did--it was a sight to see them! And how they would give to
one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo, dat
for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it! What a
blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their little
graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under them; and the
only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her breast.

"Pay y