ind out what it is. That is my advice. It is of no use to tease him
with medical attendance."

When they reached the drawing room they found the boy with the mail bag
waiting for his mistress. She quickly unlocked and distributed its
contents.

"Letters for everybody except myself! But here is a late copy of the
'London Times' with which I can amuse myself while you look over your
epistles, ladies and gentlemen," said Mrs. Brudenell, as she settled
herself to the perusal of her paper. She skipped the leader, read the
court circular, and was deep in the column of casualties, when she
suddenly cried out:

"Good Heaven, Herman! what a catastrophe!"

"What is it, mother?"

"A collision on the London and Brighton Railway, and ever so many killed
or wounded, and--Gracious goodness!"

"What, mother?"

"Among those instantly killed are the Marquis and Marchioness of
Brambleton and the Countess of Hurstmonceux!"

"No!" cried the young man, rushing across the room, snatching the paper
from his mother's hand, and with starting eyes fixed upon the paragraph
that she hastily pointed out, seeming to devour the words.

A few days after this Nora Worth sat propped up in an easy-chair by the
open window that commanded the view of the Forest Valley and of the
opposite hill crowned with the splendid mansion of Brudenell Hall.

But Nora was not looking upon this view; at least except upon a very
small part of it--namely, the little narrow footpath that led down her
own hill and was lost in the shade of the valley. The doctor's
prescriptions had done Nora no good; how should they? Could he, more
than others, "minister to a mind diseased"? In a word, she had now grown
so weak that the spinning was entirely set aside, and she passed her
days propped up in the easy-chair beside the window, through which she
could watch that little path, which was now indeed so disused, so
neglected and grass grown, as to be almost obliterated.

Suddenly, while Nora's eyes were fixed abstractedly upon this path, she
uttered a great cry and started to her feet.

Hannah stopped the clatter of her shuttle to see what was the matter.

Nora was leaning from the window, gazing breathlessly down the path.

"What is it, Nora, my dear? Don't lean so far out; you will fall! What
is it?"

"Oh, Hannah, he is coming! he is coming!"

"Who is coming, my darling? I see no one!" said the elder sister,
straining her eyes down the path.

"But I feel him comi