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Mr and Mrs Nugent were enjoying their holiday exceedingly On Good Friday they had driven laboriously in a waggonette to Royston, where they had visited the here, and held a stately picnic on the downs They had returned, the gentlehtly flushed with brandy and water from the various hostelries on the home journey, and the ladies severe, atercress on their laps Accordingly, on the Saturday, Mrs Nugent had thought it better to stay indoors and dispatch her husband to the scene of the first cricket match of the season, a couple of miles away

At about five o'clock she made herself a cup of tea, and did not wake up fro in She aith a start, reood look between the spare bedrooe or two of the furniture There was a any wardrobeand so forth

She had not entered this room very often since the death It had come to resemble to her lories that lorious day that had begun to dahen Laurie, very constrained though very ardent, had called upon them in state to disclose his intentions Well, it had been a false dawn; but at least it could be, and was, still talked about in sad and suggestive whispers

It seemed full then of a , candle in hand, and stood regarding it fro very startling A shrouded bed protruded from the wall opposite with the words "The Lord preserve thee froirl's own hand An oleograph of Queen Victoria in coronation robes hung on one side and the painted photograph of a Nonconformist divine, Bible in hand, whiskered and cravatted, upon the other There was a small cloth-covered table at the foot of the bed, adorned with an almost continuous line of brass-headed nails as a kind of beading round the edge, in the center of which rested the plaster i a cross A hymn-book and a Bible stood before this, and a sainst the opposite wall, flanked by dejected-looking wedding-groups, and another text or two, stood the great uely in contemplation