and shutting
the stove door. Margaret was polishing a pie-plate, with tears in her
eyes, and Louise had seized a sieve, and appeared to be breaking eggs
into it. Nobody wanted to speak first.

"What do you say to hearing a story?" uttered Louise.

"O, you poor woman," exclaimed Margaret, seizing Mrs. Clifford by both
hands: "you look so sorrowful, dear, as if nothing would ever make you
happy again. Can you believe we have a piece of good news for you?"

"For me?" Mrs. Clifford looked bewildered.

"Good news for you," said Louise, dropping the sieve to the floor: "yes,
indeed! O, Maria, we thought Henry was killed; but he isn't; it's a
mistake of the papers. He's alive, and coming home to-night."

All this as fast as she could speak. No wonder Mrs. Clifford was
shocked! First she stood quiet and amazed, gazing at her sister with
fixed eyes: then she screamed, and would have fallen if her mother and
Margaret had not caught her in their arms.

"O, I have killed her," cried Louise: "I didn't mean to speak so quick!
Henry is _almost_ dead, Maria: he is _nearly_ dead, I mean! He's just
alive!"

"Louise, bring some water at once," said Mrs. Parlin, sternly.

"O, mother," sobbed Louise, returning with the water, "I didn't mean to
be so hasty; but you might have known I would: you should have sent me
out of the room."

This was very much the way Prudy talked when she did wrong: she had a
funny way of blaming other people.

It is always unsafe to tell even joyful news too suddenly; but Louise's
thoughtlessness had not done so much harm as they all feared. Mrs.
Clifford recovered from the shock, and in an hour or two was wonderfully
calm, looking so perfectly happy that it was delightful just to gaze at
her face.

She wanted the pleasure of telling the children the story with her own
lips. Grace was fairly wild with joy, kissing everybody, and declaring
it was "too good for anything." She was too happy to keep still, while
as for Horace, he was too happy to talk.

"Then uncle Henry wasn't gone to heaven," cried little Prudy: "hasn't he
been to heaven at all?"

"No, of course not," said Susy: "didn't you hear 'em say he'd be here
to-night?--Now you've got on the nicest kind of a dress, and if you spot
it up 'twill be awful."

"I guess," pursued Prudy, "the man that shooted found 'twas uncle Henry,
and so he didn't want to kill him down dead."

How the family found time to do so many things that day, I do not kn