d, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.'

There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He
had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our
interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful,
perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was about
to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance
past, and he returned.

That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After I
had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not
usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in
the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was
startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they
were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction,
and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.

Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery
to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must
therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at
my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying
footsteps.

I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few
minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the gallery; and,
listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's voice and hers in
dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart,
leaning with my elbow on my pillow.

Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at
my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor
with--

'Who's there?'

'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'

'Is papa ill?'

'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took
for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and
he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one,
"C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him
again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss--I suspeck my eyes is a-going.'

I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books,
as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.

I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have
been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a do