She impetuously seized the sealed document, and, retiring to the window-niche, slowly unfolded it, whilst the old general fixed his little gray eyes upon her emotionless face.

His own was bloated and red, expressing the greatest anxiety and expectation.

Perfect stillness reigned for some minutes, only the regular strokes of the pendulum were heard from the clock on the wall; and, as the hands pointed to the expiration of the hour, a cuckoo sprang out of the tree painted over the dial, and eleven times her hoarse, croaking voice was heard.
"It gets every day more out of tune," growled the general, as he looked up to the old, yellow dial, and ran his eye over the cords which supported the weights.

Then glancing around the room, he saw everywhere age, decay, and indigence.

There was an old divan, with a patched, faded covering of silk, and a grandfather's arm-chair near it, the cushion of which the general knew, by the long years of experience, to be hard as a stone.