Mrs. Smith Of Longmains

[CONCLUDED.] SCÈNE IIL Mrs. Smith's was not a face upon wliich I imagine, as a rule, any emotion painted itself with rnuch vividness. It was a dull, flat, mask like face; but there was one feeling that upon my entry it showed .itself at all events f ully capable of portraying, and that was astonishment. I shall never forget the way in which her eyes and mouth opened as I sheepishly folio wed my own name into her drawing room. She rose froni a work table at which she was sitting and advanced to meet me civilly enough; but all over her face was written such an obvious expectation of hearing f rom my lips some immediate explanation of this surprising visit, that not all the shock of the discovery that, in its first particular - that of the changed butler - my dream was fulfilled - could prevent my feeling covered with confusión at my own apparent intrusiveness. "I am afraid this is rather a late hour at which to cali," said I constrainedly - she tried to put in a f aint disclaimer - "but the fact is I met with an accident on my way. My carriage broke down in Saleóte - something went wrong with the axle tree." "Indeed! I am very sorry," perfectly politely, but still with that undisguisable look of astonishment and expected explanation. It must bo remembered that she had been living twelvo years in the neighborhood and that I had made no slightest atternpt to visit her before. "And so I had to wait till a fly could be got ready, which threw me later still," continued I boldly. She again repeated: "Indeed!" and that she was very sorry, adding that the Saleóte flies were very bad ones; but I saw the juzzled look grow acuter, and I could follow the chaiu of thought that was running through her mind as plainly as if it had been written ou a pieee of paper before rne. That my earriage should have broken down. and that yet I should have been so deteriainedly resolved to visit her as to push on in the teeth of circumstances in a moldy fly at 6 o'clock at night, and on such a night, was the problem, her total inability to solve which she was perfectly unable to disguise, nor could I help her. It was utterly irnpossible that I could teil her what motive had brought me. Had she been another kind of woman I might possibly have confessed myself to her; but being such as she was I feit that 1 had sooner De torn m pieces Dy wild horses. As we were toilsoinely trying to keep up a conversation rendered almost imiossible by our relativo pu.itions, the butler entered, bringing tea. As he set down the tray on the tea table I could not help stealing a sidelong glance at his face. It told me nothing. I had never, to my knowledge, seen it before, nor was it one that I should ever have noticed. But then neither had I seen the dream face. It had been unaccountably bidden from me. As soon as he had left the room I said abruptly, "So you have lost your old butler." A fresh accesa of surprise overtook her, as I saw. How did I know that they had an old butler? "Yes," she answered slowly, "we kept him as long as we could, poor man, becauso we were so fond of him, but he grew so infirm at last he had to go." I "And your 'present one?" i "Our present one?" repeating my words with a puzzled air. "Yes: do you like him? Had you a very good character with him?" Her eyes opencd wide at my extraordinary curiosity. "Well, I am afraid that we were a little iniprudent in his case. I am surq it Í3 very good of you to take an interest in the matter.''- "For good read impertinent," commented I, interaal'.y. - "But the fact is, there seems to be a little mystery about the reason why he left his last place. However, Mr. Smith took a fancy to his appearance and so we engaged him. But I do not know," formally, "why I should troublo you with our domestic afïairs." I did not answer for a moment. I was thinking with a sort of stupefaction. They have taken him without a character! Who knows what his antecedents were? When I did speak it %vas with an apparently brusque chango of subject; I myself knew the link that bound the two topics together in my mind. "Mr. Smith is well, I hope; at home?" "He was quite well when he left home this inorning, thanks." "Left home?" interrapted I, breathlessly; "he has left home?" "He was suinmoned away unexpectedly," ansvvered she, tranquüly; "but I expect him back to-morrow, or the day after, at latest." "But not to-night?"' hurriedly. "No, not to-night, certainly," with her usual phlegrn. At that moment the butler again entered, bringing coals, apparently - Longmains did not boast a footman - and knelt down before the fire to put theni on. For a moment my eye feil on him; then I turned suddenly sick. Surely that was the very back, the very kneeling figure altogether that I had seen in my dreanis! Jl suppose 1 looked very odd, pale and faint, for I found Mrs. Smith's white eyes fixed upon me, and her voice asking me, "Did I feel the fire too much?" I stammered out a negative and for some moments could do no more. At last, the object that had excited my emotion being no longer in the room, I rose, driven by some inward power stronger than myself, and went toward Mrs. Smith. She, thinking that I meant to take leave, rose, too. "I do not know whether your fly is at the door," said she; "you had better let me ring and ask." Her hand was on its way to the bell, but I arrested.it. She had misunderstood my action in rising. I had not meant to go yet. But now she was virtually dismissing me. I must leave her. What pretext had I for further intrusión? I had come twelve miles in the teeth of circumstances; I had seen and spoken with her, and now I was to leave her. What object had I then served by my wild freak? I had not warned her; I had given her no slightest hint of the peril that to my excited imagination seemed to hang imminently over her. I had been of no least service to her, and now I was leaving her - leaving her to her fate. It was irnpossible! It was equaMy impossible that I should exposé myself to hf.r more than probable ridicule by telling her what had brought me! I embraced a desperate resolution. I still held her hand, which I had seizedto prevent ber ringing the bell. I was so agitated that I was hardly aware that it was in my clasp, until her face of profound astonishment, almost alarm, betrayed the f act to me. "I do not. know what you will think of me," said I, in a shaking voice, "but I'm going to make what 4 am afraid you will think a very extraordinary request to you." "Indeed!" said she, with a perceptible accent of distrust and a decided drawing away of the hand so convulsively clasped by me. "Yes," said I, going on with a feverish haste, now that the ice -as once broken, "you see it has happened so unfortunately , the distance was greater than I expected. and then the axle tree breaking and the poor fly horse is so done that I am sure he could not crawl another niile; in short, I am af raid I must throw myself upon your hospitality and ask you to give me shelter, to let me stay here for the night."' Out it liad come and now it only remained to bo seen how she would take my proposition! At first she was too dumfounded to utter. I saw at once that tho idea of my being deranged crossed her mind; for she looked hardat and at tho same time backed away from me. Then her civility revived. "Of course!" she said, "of course! I shallbe only too delighted!' and theu she stopped again. I saw that, having gained my point, my next task was to convince her of my sanity. I, therefore, with prof use thanks and apologies, and as composed a voice as I could master, asked lea ve to send my orders by the flyman back to my i rt . i _ _ j_ _ Y a - 1_ J.T i. coacüman ac öaicoie. i iook care tiiat she should hear me give them myself to the man, so that she might know thai the broken axle tree and disablec brougham were not figments of my own diseased imagination. But I do notthink that this measure had much effect in removing the suspicion of my sanity from my [hostess' mind. I had gone out to the hall door to speak to the flyman, whence we both returned to the drawing room to begin our sixteen or eighteen hours' tete-a-tete. I think that both our hearts Bunk to our boots at the prospect. I am sure that mine did. In order, perhaps, to abridge it as much as possible, Mrs. Smith soon left me with some mured sentence about seeing that my room was comfortable, which it certainly was not. It was, on the contrary, as I found on being led to it, as uncomfortable as a hastily got ready bedroom, with a just lit fire and a sensation of not having been occupied for some indefinita time past would naturally be on a biting January night. Having taken off my bonnet and made myself as tidy as I could, with the aid of Mrs. Smith"s brush and comb, and told myself repeatedly that the world had never seen such a fooi as me, and that neither the girls nor my husband would ever forgive me, I went down stairs and we presently betook ourselVes to dinner. Hiere we sat opposite to each other in .ete-a-tete. I had faintly hoped that Borne female friend, oíd governess or cousin might erop up to make a third wlth us. But, no; there we were - we ;wo! We were waited on by the butler, and by him alone. By questions, whose impertinence Mrs. Smith must have thoujjht only palliated 3y the unsound Btate of my mind, I ascertained that the Srnith establishment in its normal state consisted of butler and footman, but that the footman had two days ago been suddenly taken ill and sent home. The butler was therefore now, in his master's absence, the only man in the Ijouse. I also ascertained during one of his absences from the room that the stables were at an inconveniently long distanoe from the house, and that there was no cottage nearer than a quarter of a mile off. Altogether as lonely a spot as you would wish to see. My eyes traveled uncomfortably and furtively after the man on his return into the room, but I could see nothing in his appearance to justify my terrors. HÍ3 face had no specially sinister cast. It was almost as insigniflcant as his mistress'. And his figure! Could it be possible that the startling resemblance I had traced in it to my dream figure was only the figment of my horrified f ancy? But no, no, a hundred times no! As I watched the butler, in precisely the same furtively apprehensive way I was conscious that Mrs. Smith was watching me. Her slow brain had adopted and clung f ast to the belief that I was mad; nor, indeed, was that conviction devoid of a good deal of justification. I think that she would not have been at all surprised if I had at any moment risen and playfully buried the carving knife in her breast. I have of ten thought since what a pleasant dinnershe must have had. lt was over at last. It had seemed enormously long, and yet on our return to the drawing room it proved to have been disastrously short, short as women's dinners always are. We had dined at 8 and it was now only five-and-twenty minutes to 9. Three hours and five-and-twenty minutes until the period indicated in my dreara. We sat down dejectedly on each side of the fire. I noticed almost with a smile that Mrs. Smith took care not to place herself too near me. We had long exhausted our few poor topics of cotumon talk. I had not even any more inipertinent questions to ask. It is true that after having run, as we both thought, quite dry already, we had had tho good fortune to happen upon a comrnon acquaintance. Very slightly as she was kno wn to either of us, with what tenacity did we cleave to that poor woman! How we dissectéd her character, anatomized her clothes, criticised her actions, enumerated her vices, speculated on her motives, about none or all of which we either of us knew or cared a button. But at last she was picked to the bone, and bare naked silence stared us in the face. What a dreadful evening it was! Saved, to me at least, from the simplicity of bottomless tedium by altérnate rushes of burning 6hame and icy apprehension. At 10 o'clock Mrs. Smith could bear it no longer. She rose and rang for candles, "I dare say that you will not be sorry to go to bed," she said, a sort of relief coming into her tone. I believe she nourished a secret intention of locking me into my room when once she had got me there. "Af ter your long drive you will be glad of rest." "And will you, too?" asked I stupidly, for she had no long drive. "I mean, are you also going to bed?" She hesitated. "It would not be much use my going to bed so early. I am a bad sleeper." "You are not going to bed then?" "Not just yet." "You are going to stay here - in thia room, I mean?" "No, I am going to my boudoir." A cold shiver ran down me. Her boudoir! That was the room we were sitting in in my dream. There was a moment's pause. "I wonder," said I, with a nervous laugh, and iu a voice whose agitation I could but partially control, "whether you would let me come witli you. I - I - am not at all sleepy af ter all; it - it is se very early, is not it? I - I - should like to see your boudoir. May I?" Polite woman as Mrs. Smith was, and had proved herself to be to-night, she could not prevent a flash of acute annoyance, mixed, as I saw, with fear, from crossing her face. "It really is not at all worth seeing," replied she stiffly, "and I canxiot help thinking that you look tired." "But I am not at all," rejoined I, obstinately. "I should like tocóme with you, if you would let me." "Of course, if you wish it," said she grudgingly. Before finally succumbing she made one or two more efforts to shake me off. In vain! I was quite immovable. I heard her give an irrepressible sigh of impatience and apprehension at my unaccountable and oflensive pertinacity as she preceded me up stairs. Ve reached her boudoir. It was a commonplace room, comrnonplacely arranged. I had seen hundreds like it, but never to my knowledge, either in waking or sleeping, had niy eyes made acquaintance with it before. I looked at once upon entering to see whether the relative position of door and fireplace were the same as those seen in my dream, and also whether there was a clock on the chimney piece. In both particulars my visión had told told me correctly. But after all there was nothing very remarkable in this. Most room3 boast a clock, and in many the door is on the left hand of the fireplace. But to me it seemed confirmation Btrong as Iloly Writ. "I told you that there was nothing to see bare," s.aid my hostess, noting my eyes wandeling round, and speaking in a tone out of which she could not keep all the resentmcnt she feit. "But it - it is very - very comfortable!" rejoined I, hastily, fearing that this was the prelude to a curt dismissal of me. "I should like to stay here a bit with you, if I might." She made somo sort of murmured sound, which might mean acquiescence, and we sat down. This time we did not even attenipt any conversation. She occupied herself with some work that apparently required a great deal of counting; and I - I had no other occupation but my thoughts. I could not well have had a worse one. As I sat there in silence, listening with ears continually strained to catch some sound that was not swallowed up in the shutter shaking of the storm wind, with eyes perpetually traveling to the clock face, I asked myself over and over again what purpose I hoped to serve by this apparently so insane procedure of mine? Were the dream to prove a fallacy I had made as great a fooi of myself as the world- fertile in that product - had ever seen. If, on the other hand, the dream, hitherto proved curiously true in some elight particulars, were to be carried out in its terrible main features, of what avail could I suppose my presence to be in averting the catastrophe with which it concluded? All I had done was to involve myself in Mrs. Smith's fate, which there could be no doubt about my sharing. Again that cold shudder ran over me. I could not help breaking the silence to ask my companión whether she never feit it a little eerie sitting up here a!l alone so late at night. She answered briefly: "I am not nervous." "Do you ever take the precaution of locking the door?" asked I, glancing nervously toward it. She smiled rather contemptuously: "Never, and even ïf I wished I should be unable, as I see, what I never noticed before, that the lock is broken." The clock struck 11. One hour more. It passed, too, that last hour. It was endless, an eternity, yet it rushed. As it drew toward its last Bands, I hardly breathed. If Mrs. Smith had once looked up f rom the stitching at which ehe was so tranquilly pegging away, she must have seen the agitation under which I was laboring, and would of course have at once assigned it to her old count of insanity. I wondered that she did not hear the thunder-ing of my heart, pulsing 6O loudly as to impede that intensity of listening into which all my po%vers seemed to have passed. How near it wa8 growing! Five minutes, four minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute. I held niy breath. I clinched my hands till the nails dug into the palms. Twelve! The clock struck! With that ringing in my head, with that hammering heart, should I hear the knock, even if it came? Mrs. Smith made some slight movement, and I almost shrieked, but I bit in thescream and listened again. Ono minute past; two minutes past; three; four up to twelvel The clock said twelve minutes past 12. As each minute went by, I drew a longer breath and my tense nerves slackened. At the twelve minutes past Mrs. Smith looked up. "Do you feel inclined to go to bed yet?' she inquired. "I am afraid" (looking more attenti vely at me) "that you are more tired than you will allow." "I think I will go," said I, rising and drawing a long breath; "it is ten minutes past 12." "Not quite that," rejoined she; "that clock is ten minutes fast. I must have it regulated to-morrow.", "I must have it regulated to-morrow!" Like lightning it flashed upon me that that was the speech Mrs. Smith had made in my dream immediately before the knock came. The speech I had made such vain efforts to recall. And, as panic Btruck, this dawned upon me, some one knocked. A mist swam before my eyes. I tried to speak, but no words would come, and Mrs. Smith apparently did not see the agonized hand I stretched out toward her. "Come in!" she said, phlegmatically. The door opened and in the aperature appeared the figure of the butler, with a coal box in his hand. My horror struck eyes were riveted on hini, but I eould not stir hand or foot. To what purpose if I had? Were not we alone in the house with him - we two wretched, defenseless woinen? Mrs. Smith had, as in my dream, moved to the other side of the room, to the piece of furniture with drawera at which I had seen her standing. Then she looked over her shoulder and said composedly, "Thank you, Harris; we do not want any more coal to-night." Then, as he seemed, or seemed to me, to hesitate, she added quietly, "I shall not require anytliing more to-night; you may goto bed." Could I believe my eyes? Was he really retreating, shutting the door af ter him? Were thoso hia footsteps, whoso lessening sound I heard along tlie passage? For a moment everything grew dark before me. I clutched the aruis of my chair to assure myself that this was reality and no dream. Then I staggered to my feet and toward Mrs. Smith. "Is he gone?" asked I, in a hoarse whisper. "Gone!" repeated she, in astonishment, all her old doubts as to my soundness of mind rushing back in a flood. "Yes, of course, he is gone! Why not?" "And he will not come back?" still in that huaky whisper. "Of course not. I told him I needed nothing more to-night. I think" - eying me distressfully- "tliat you really had better go to bed; you seem a little- a little - feverish!" "Yes," said I, making an eflort to recover soine decent amount of cofn posure, 'perhaps I am; I will go to bed if you are quite - quite sure"' She looked so really alarined at my manner and words that I did not finish my sentence. I followed her, still shaking in every limb, to my bedroom, when she left me, and into which I arn almost certain, though she tried to do it as noiselessly as possible, that she locked me. For hours after she left me I remained, sunk in the arm chair by the fire, into which I had almost fallen on entering. I still shook as if ague struck, and every now and again I held my breath to iisten- to listen for that stealthy step, which even now I feit must come, for the noise of that awful thud which still sounded so loudly in the ears of my imagination that I could not even yet believe that it neither had nor ever would have any echo in a real sound. At length I dropped into an uneasy doze, froui which I was awakened by a sensation of extreme cold, to find the fire black out and the temperature of the room at or below freezing point. I rose añil threw rnyself, dressed, upon the bed, and wrapping myself in a fur cloak feil into a heavy sleep, from which I was only roused by the 8 o'elock entry of the housemaid. On first opening my bewildered eyes I could not recollect where I was, but stared round vronderingly at the unfamiliar room. Then recollection came upon me with a rush and I buried my face in the pillow. Oh, why had I ever woke again? Why had day ever liad inhumanity to dawn again upon such a candidate for Earlswood? As the details of the previous day's incidents came back upon ine with brutal vividness, I called to the rocks to fall upon ine and the mountains to cover me. Had any one sinee the world first began rolling ever written themsel ves down so egregious an ass? Befooled by an idiotie dream; misled by a faneied remembrance of circumstances; floundering deeper and deeper into the quagmire of unreason, which had landed me at last, fully dressed, on the strange bed, and with the appalling prospect before me of having to go down and meet Mrs. Smith at breakfast. She would probably and wisely meet me with a lunatic asylum keeper and a strait waistcoat. And niy children, my servants, my husband, how should I ever look any one of them in the face again? I writhed. But writhing did not help me. I had seen the housemaid's astonished glance at my full dressed condition, a fresh proof of my insanity, which would, no doubt, be conveyed to Mrs. Smith. I must get up. I must go down and appear as soon as I could. That was all that was now lef t me. And that much I did. With what inward groveling, mentally though not apparently, on all fours, I enterad that dining room will never be known save only to myself. She came to meet me, civil, dull and unemotional; though I thought I caught a look of lurking apprehension still in her eye. Stupid woman! Why could not she have been shot through the head and fallen with that thud I had expected of her? I feit a sort of anger against her for standing there so stolid and sound, after having wrought me such irremediable woe. Oh, that breakfast! Shall I ever forget it? How did I live through it? Through it and the moments that followed it, and the leave taking? At the latter I do not think that I said anything. My tongue clove to the roof of rny mouth. I liad just senso left to give her my hand stupidly and to notico the look of scarcely subdued joy and relief on her face at seeing the last of ine. She sent nio in her carriage as f ar as Saleóte, which I thought she looked upon as the surest method of being rid of me. At Saleóte I got into my own broughani and returned home a sadder, if not a wiser, woman. Reader, wfll you despiso me very much if I teil jou that Icried the whole way, and that on reaching my own firesido I gathered my children about me and made a clean breast of my folly to them? They took my confession chai-acteristically. Alice said that if I had taken her advice I should have been spared a great atmoyance. Kuth said that all dreains were nonsense, and reverted to her own puerile one, which even at that moment of humiliation I feit wounded at having paralleled with mine. And Sue, dear Sue, held both my hands fast in hers and said she should have done precisely, the same in my case. But I refused to be comforted, the more so as it turned out that the most valuable of the carriage horses had caught in the cold White Hart stables an influenza whieh was rapidly developing into inflainmation of the lungs. But even without that final straw I had sunk hopelessly in my own esteem. POSTSCRIPT. Just a year later the public was shocked by the account of a murder, which. in its circumstances, exceeded the measure of brutality usually connected with such crimes. It was the murder of a lonely old maiden lady by her butler - a butler to whom, as it appeared, she had been in the habit of showing exceptional kindness. I read the account with about the samo degree of shuddering disgust, I suppose, as my neighbors, but without any feeling of a personal character until it transpired, in the course of the evidence, that the murderer's name was Ilarris - a name by which I had once, and only once, heard Mrs. Smith of Longmains address lier butler. I dismissed the thought at once aa far as I was able. Had not I had enough of giving the reina to my imagination? Was not Harria an extremely common name? Alrnost as common as Smith. But when the trial carne on, which, as the crime liad been committed shortly before the assizes, it did very soon after the committal to prison, I, perhaps uuknowa aknost to myself, followed lí with a keener interest than, but for this trifling circumstance, I should have done. The trial was a short one; the evidence OTerwhelming; the man found guilty, condemned and executed without any sentimentalist being found to petition the home secretary in hfs favor. On the evening before his execution he made to the jail chaplain a full confession of his crime, and not only of that one which brought him to the gallows, but of a previous oñe, which he had been prevented from carrying bevond the stage of intention by a curious accident. What that curious accident was you shall hear, and judge of my feelings on reading the following extract from the murderer's confession: "In January of last year I was living in the service of Mr. Smith of Longnlains. I was at very low water at the time, over hcad and ears in debt and did not know where to turn for money, which I wanted desperately and feit that I must obtain by fair nieans or fonl. My chief inducement for entering Mr. Smith's service had been that I had accidental heard that he was in the habit of keeping considerable sums of money in the house for the purpose of paying the weekly wages of the workmen employed upon some extensive drainage works which he had undertaken, : "I thought, on reaching Longmains,. that I had never seen a house better adapted to niy purpose. It was as lonely a spot as I have ever seen, the'stables at an unusual distance from the hall and no dwelling house within less than a quarter of a mile. The establishment consisted, as to men, of myself and one footman; but about a week after my arrival the footman feil ill and had to be sent home. "I had not yet inatured my plans, though I had ascertained that Mr. Smith kept his money in a strong box in his business room, amd that in the case of his absence Mrs. Smith had charge of the key, when one morning my master was unexpeetedly summoned from home, leaving me alone with my mistress and the female servants in the house. "Such an opportunity which, very probably, might not soon occur again, was, I feit, not to be lost. Mrs. Smith's habits were sucli as to favor my project. She usually sat in her boudoir, 6ituated in a rather isolated part of the house, until late at night. 1 made up my mind to wait until the rest of th household had retired. and then to go to Mrs. Smith's boudoir on the pretext of taking coals for the fire, obtain from her the key of the strong box, by fair means if possible; but if she resisted - and she was a resolute woman - I had determined to shoot her through the lu;ad, haring provided myself with a revolver for the purpose, furnish myself with as inuch money as I could get hold of and make tracks for America. I was prevented from carrying out this inteution by a very unlooked for accident. "Late in the afternoon - the afternoon of that day - the weather was extremely bad, snowing hard, with a high wind,. and bitter cold - a lady arrived in a fly to cali on my mistress. I could see that my mistress was greatly surprised when I took in the lady's card, for as far as I could make out she was very slightly acquainted with her and lived a matter of twenty miles off. "I have never to this day made out why she came. We all thought 6he was off her head, and I believe she was. My mistress certainly thought so, all the more w hen she asked leave to stay the night. I could see that my mistress was very much annoyed and rather alarmed, but as the lady would not go there was no help for it; stay she must. "I was a good deal upset at fust, as I v:is afraid hor being there would knock my plan on the head; but afterward 1 comforted myself with th& thought that she would bo sure to go to bed early, tired with lier long' drive, and I should find Mis. Smith alone in her boudoir. "I lit thciii their bedroom candios in the drawing room at 10 and t hen went off to wait. I would not ri-k it till 12. By that time every one would be sure to be in bed and asleep. I thought I never had known time go so slowly, but at last the clock pointed to five minutes to 12L I put my revolver in my pocket, took up the coal box, went up stairs and knocked. Mrs. Smith's voice said 'Come in,' and I opened the door. "What was my horror to find the strango lady still sitting there with my mistress! The sight of her took me so aback that I did not know whether to come in or not, and as I was hesitating Mrs. Smith said: 'We do not want any more coals. You may go to bed, Han-is,"" or soinething like that. And all the while the 6trange lady was staring at me so oddly, as white as a ghost, that I began to think she must have somehow found out what I was after. Her being there and her looking at me like that altogether made me feel so queer that I actually shut the door and went away again. I thought I would put it off till uext night. But on the following day Mr. Smith returned and I never liad another chance." I had no sooner reached this last word than I rose to my feet. I was certainly a yard taller than when I eat down. "Girls," said I, calling to them in a voice of solemn authority, and as they gathered round, "be so good as to read these paragraphs," pointing to them with my finger. I watched their faces as they did so, and when they had finished I said, turning to Alice, in a voice of more than mortal dignity, "You see that wisdom is justified of her child." I was interrupted by the door opening and a lady rushing past the footman to precipítate herself into my arms. It was Mrs. Smith of Longmains, come to thank me lor having saved her life and to apologize with tears for having ever thought me ripe for Bedlarn. THE END.