ng in one of her black moods, with her hand on
the top of her chair, ready to go but forgetting to do so. I was
there, but neither of them noticed me; he was staring at her, and
she was looking down. Neither seemed at ease. Suddenly he spoke
and asked, 'Why must Cora remain with us?' She started and her
look grew strange and frightened. 'Because I want her to,' she
cried. 'I can not live without Cora."'

These words, so different from what we were expecting, caused a
sensation in the room and consequently a stir. As the noise of
shifting feet and moving heads began to be heard in all directions,
Miss Tuttle's head drooped a little, but Francis Jeffrey did not
betray any sign of feeling or even of attention. The coroner,
embarrassed, perhaps, by this exhibition of silent misery so near
him, hesitated a little before he put his next question. Loretta,
on the contrary, had gathered courage with every word she spoke and
now looked ready for anything.

"It was Mrs. Jeffrey, then, who clung most determinedly to her
sister?" the coroner finally suggested.

"I have told you what she said."

"Yet these sisters spent but little time together?"

"Very little; as little as two persons could who lived together
in one house."

This statement, which seemed such a contradiction to her former one,
increased the interest; and much disappointment was covertly shown
when the coroner veered off from this topic and brusquely inquired
"Did you ever know Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey to have any open rupture?"

The answer was a decided one.

"Yes. On Tuesday morning preceding her death they had a long and
angry talk in their own room, after which Mrs. Jeffrey made no
further effort to conceal her wretchedness. Indeed, one may say
she began to die from that hour."

Mrs. Jeffrey's death had occurred on Wednesday evening.

"Let us hear what you have to say about this quarrel and what
happened after it."

The girl, with a renewed flush, cast a deprecatory look at the mass
of faces before her, and, meeting on all sides but one look of
intense and growing interest, drew up her neat figure with a
relieved air and began a story which I will proceed to transcribe
for you in the fewest possible words.

Tuesday morning's breakfast had been a silent one. There had been a
ball the night before at some great place on Massachusetts Avenue;
but no one spoke of it. Miss Tuttle made some remark about a friend
she had met there, but as no on