Her dying so suddenly" (slowly, and with hesitation it was spoken), "and you--none of you being at home--and your father, I thought--perhaps had not been very fond of her." "And from these circumstances," he replied (his quick eye fixed on hers), "you infer perhaps the probability of some negligence--some"-- (involuntarily she shook her head)--"or it may be--of something still less pardonable." She raised her eyes towards him more fully than she had ever done before.

"My mother's illness," he continued, "the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden.

The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever--its cause therefore constitutional.

On the third day, in short, as soon as she could be prevailed on, a physician attended her, a very respectable man, and one in whom she had always placed great confidence.

Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were called in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance for four and twenty hours.