, tell her a few home-truths, and Rose would crumple up her
nose, shake her head, and look superhumanly wise--Rose who in the
old days had been more thoughtless than May.

Still she deserved it all a thousand times over, and it would be a
relief to have disburdened herself of the sorry tale.

Her own sisters would defend her from every other assailant. They would
feel for her, seek to reassure her, even make much of her, as they were
doing by taking her away with them this afternoon. May was very sensible
that a burden was lifted off her back.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS.

There is a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things
happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there
has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be
another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the
fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the
chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has
preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been
killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public
opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the
singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated
breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore
bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in
spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the
language, and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember
several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history.

Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the
20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her
lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner,
to divulge her sorrowful news.

Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in
the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had
been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before.
Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's
hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?--yet
if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by
yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to
keep me in suspense."

"Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora