pid and so disagreeable in all my life.

Towards the end of the dinner, there came news from Browndown at last.
The servant sent in a message by Zillah, begging me to see him for a
moment outside the sitting-room door.

I made my excuses to my guest, and hurried out.

The instant I saw the servant's face, my heart sank. Oscar's kindness had
attached the man devotedly to his master. I saw his lips tremble, and his
color come and go, when I looked at him.

"I have brought you a letter, ma'am."

He handed me a letter addressed to me in Oscar's handwriting.

"How is your master?" I asked.

"Not very well, when I saw him last."

"When you saw him last?"

"I bring sad news, ma'am. There's a break-up at Browndown."

"What do you mean? Where is Mr. Oscar?"

"Mr. Oscar has left Dimchurch."

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH

The Brothers change Places

I VAINLY believed I had prepared myself for any misfortune that could
fall on us. The man's last words dispelled my delusion. My gloomiest
forebodings had never contemplated such a disaster as had now happened. I
stood petrified, thinking of Lucilla, and looking helplessly at the
servant. Try as I might, I was perfectly incapable of speaking to him.

He felt no such difficulty on his side. One of the strangest
peculiarities in the humbler ranks of the English people, is the sort of
solemn relish which they have for talking of their own misfortunes. To be
the objects of a calamity of any kind, seems to raise them in their own
estimations. With a dreary enjoyment of his miserable theme, the servant
expatiated on his position as a man deprived of the best of masters;
turned adrift again in the world to seek another service; hopeless of
ever again finding himself in such a situation as he had lost. He roused
me at last into speaking to him, by sheer dint of irritating my nerves
until I could endure him no longer.

"Has Mr. Oscar gone away alone?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, quite alone."

(What had become of Nugent? I was too much interested in Oscar to be able
to put the question, at that moment.)

"When did your master go?" I went on.

"Better than two hours since."

"Why didn't I hear of it before?"

"I had Mr. Oscar's orders not to tell you, ma'am, till this time in the
evening."

Wretched as I was already, my spirits sank lower still when I heard that.
The order given to the servant looked like a premeditated design, not
only to leave Dimchurch, but also to