oned to you,
and I was asked to speak to you about it."

Four simultaneous gasps were now heard in that little parlor, and four
chills ran down the backs of four self-constituted heirs.

"I must say, Susan," remarked Mrs. Cliff, with a good-humored smile, "if
you want me to do anything, there's no need of being so wonderfully
formal about it! If any one of you, or all of you together, for that
matter, have anything to say to me, all you had to do was to come and
say it."

"They didn't seem to think that way," said Miss Inchman. "They all
thought that what was to be said would come better from me because I'd
known you so long, and we had grown up together."

"It must be something out of the common," said Mrs. Cliff. "What in the
world can it be? If you are to speak, Susan, speak out at once! Let's
have it!"

"That's just what I'm going to do," said Miss Inchman.

If Mrs. Cliff had looked around at the four heirs who were sitting
upright in their chairs, gazing in horror at Miss Inchman, she would
have been startled, and, perhaps, frightened. But she did not see them.
She was so much interested in what her old friend Susan was saying, that
she gave to her her whole attention.

But now that their appointed spokeswoman had announced her intention of
immediately declaring the object of the meeting, each one of them felt
that this was no place for her! But, notwithstanding this feeling, not
one of them moved to go. Miss Cushing, of course, had no excuse for
leaving, for this was her own house; and although the others might have
pleaded errands, a power stronger than their disposition to
fly--stronger even than their fears of what Mrs. Cliff might say to them
when she knew all--kept them in their seats. The spell of self-interest
was upon them and held them fast. Whatever was said and whatever was
done they must be there! At this supreme moment they could not leave the
room. They nerved themselves, they breathed hard, and listened!

"You see, Sarah," said Miss Inchman, "we must all die!"

"That's no new discovery," answered Mrs. Cliff, and the remark seemed to
her so odd that she looked around at the rest of the company to see how
they took it; and she was thereupon impressed with the idea that some of
them had not thought of this great truth of late, and that its sudden
announcement had thrown them into a shocked solemnity.

But the soul of Miss Cushing was more than shocked,--it was filled with
fury! If there had