ket.

The guests in the house departed hurriedly within two hours of Mrs.
Ogilvie's death, amidst all the confusion of hasty packing, and
carriages ordered for this person and for that, and footmen hastening
downstairs with luggage, and luncheon prepared hurriedly and eaten
almost surreptitiously by those who wished to catch an early train.
There was a horrible stir in the house under the hush and awe that
death brings. No one wished to intrude upon Peter; yet a dozen friends
wanted to see him, to hear, if possible, more details of his mother's
sudden end. Others, with a sort of animal instinct of forsaking at
once the place where death reigned, betrayed an almost contemptible
haste in quitting the house; but they, too, must know all that could be
told. They had never noticed that Mrs. Ogilvie did not seem well, or
they had remarked that of late she had spent much time in her room, or
'she had seemed so bright and cheerful'; and, again, 'they had noticed
how tired she had been at night sometimes.'

To no one had Peter any special news to give. Some one had heard, he
believed, that she had been to see Sir Edward Croft, the great surgeon
in London, and to-day they had telegraphed to him. Peter himself had
not really been anxious about his mother, although he had imagined for
some time past that she did not look well. He gave what attention he
could to his guests, bade them a conventional good-bye, and displayed
that reserve which an Englishman is supposed to be able to maintain in
times of sorrow. But it is not too much to say that, warm-hearted,
deeply affectionate man that he was, his grief for his mother's death
had something bewildering in it. He had loved her faithfully and
admired her loyally during the whole of his life; there had never been
a quarrel between them, and, if he had not received many outward marks
of affection from her, there was no single occasion in his life that he
could remember in which she had failed him. He had come first always;
he realized this with the sinking of heart which even the most dutiful
son may feel when he sees with absolute clearness, perhaps for the
first time, that he must have accepted, almost unknowingly, many
sacrifices from his mother. He hoped, with a boyish remorse and a
boyish simple-heartedness, that she understood everything now, and that
somewhere, not very far off, she would be able to see into his heart
and know positively how much he had loved her. He h