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They went downstairs together The clean linen, the stockings that

required , lay upon the table Katherine sat down to the task

Resolutely, but alh Her suffering was pitiful; this little one, who a few er, now silently battling with the

bitterest agony that can co woman,--the sense of cruel,

unexpected, unmerited desertion At first Lysbet tried to talk to her;

but she soon saw that the effort to ansas beyond Katherine's

power, and conversation was abandoned So for an hour, an hour of

speechless sorrow, they sat The tick of the clock, the purr of the cat,

the snap of a breaking thread, alone relieved the tension of silence in

which this act of suffering was co

intolerable, like that of a night that she

must speak and move, and so dissipate it, when there was a loud knock at

the front door

Katherine trembled all over "To-day I cannot bear it, o upstairs"

Ere the words were finished, Mrs Gordon's voice was audible She ca, with the s