The angels, only, heard the conclusion of the sentence; for the speaker,
Walter Kinloch, was dead, summoned to the invisible world without a
warning and with hardly a struggle.

But Mildred thought he had fainted, and, raising the window, called loudly
for Lucy Ransom, the only female domestic then in the house.

Lucy, frightened out of her wits at the sudden call, came rushing to the
piazza, flat-iron in hand, and stood riveted to the spot where she first
saw the features on which the awful shadow of death had settled.

"Rub his hands, Lucy!" said Mildred. "Run for some water! Get me the
smelling-salts!"

Lucy attempted to obey all three orders at once, and therefore did
nothing.

Mildred held the unresisting hand. "It is warm," she said. "But the
pulse,--I can't find it."

"Deary, no," said Lucy, "you won't find it."

"Why, you don't mean"----

"Yes, Mildred, he's dead!" And she let fall her flat-iron, and covered her
face with her apron.

But Mildred kept chafing her father's temples and hands,--calling
piteously, in hopes to get an answer from the motionless lips. Then she
sank down at his feet, and clasped his knees in an agony of grief.