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There was a knock, and Mr Letterblair turned his head sharply "What is it? I can't be disturbed"

A clerk brought in a letter for Archer and withdrew Recognising his wife's hand, the young man opened the envelope and read: "Won't you please coht stroke last night In some mysterious way she found out before any one else this awful news about the bank Uncle Lovell is away shooting, and the idea of the disgrace has made poor Papa so nervous that he has a temperature and can't leave his rooet away at once and go straight to Granny's"

Archer handed the note to his senior partner, and a fewnorthward in a crowded horse-car, which he exchanged at Fourteenth Street for one of the high staggering omnibuses of the Fifth Avenue line It was after twelve o'clock when this laborious vehicle dropped hiround floor, where she usually throned, was tenanted by the inadequate figure of her daughter, Mrs Welland, who signed a haggard welcoht of Archer; and at the door he was met by May The hall wore the unnatural appearance peculiar to well-kept houses suddenly invaded by illness: wraps and furs lay in heaps on the chairs, a doctor's bag and overcoat were on the table, and beside them letters and cards had already piled up unheeded

May looked pale but s: Dr Bencomb, who had just come for the second tiott's dauntless deter an effect on her fa-roo into the bedroom had been drawn shut, and the heavy yellow damask portieres dropped over them; and here Mrs Welland communicated to him in horrified undertones the details of the catastrophe It appeared that the evening before soht o'clock, just after Mrs Mingott had finished the game of solitaire that she always played after dinner, the door-bell had rung, and a lady so thickly veiled that the servants did not inise her had asked to be received

The butler, hearing a fa-roo: "Mrs Julius Beaufort"--and had then closed it again on the two ladies They ht, about an hour When Mrs Mingott's bell rang Mrs Beaufort had already slipped away unseen, and the old lady, white and vast and terrible, sat alone in her great chair, and signed to the butler to help her into her rooh obviously distressed, in complete control of her body and brain The ht her a cup of tea as usual, laid everything straight in the rooain, and the two servants, hastening in at this unwonted summons (for old Catherine usually slept like a baby), had found their ainst her pilloith a crooked se arm