Mrs. Maitland burst into the room in intense preoccupation; the
day had been one of absorbing interest, culminating in success,
and she was alert with satisfaction. "Harris, supper! Nannie,
take my bonnet! Is your brother to be here to-night? I've
something to tell him! Where's the evening paper?"

Nannie, breathless, took the forlorn old bonnet, and said, "I--I
think he isn't coming, Mamma." Harris came running with the
newspaper; they exchanged a frightened glance, although the
mistress of the house, with one hand on the carving-knife, was
already saying, "Bless, O Lord--"

At supper Mrs. Maitland, eating--as the grocer said so long ago,
"like a day-laborer"--read her paper. Nannie watching her, ate
nothing at all and said nothing at all.

When the coarse, hurried meal was at an end, and Harris, blinking
with horrified sympathy, had shut himself into his pantry, Nannie
said, faintly, "Mamma, I have something to tell you."

"I guess it will keep, my dear, I guess it will keep! I'm too
busy just now to talk to you." She crumpled up her newspaper,
flung it on the floor, and plunged over to her desk.

Nannie looked helplessly at the back of her head, then went off
to her parlor. She sat there in the firelit darkness, too
distracted and frightened to light the gas, planning how the news
must be told. At eight o'clock there was a fluttering, uncertain
ring at the front door, and Cherry-pie came quivering in: had