aving seen him before. Mr. Pettigrew was holding his watch to
the boy's ears. The study table was littered with several hundreds of
Jubilee odes. Other odes had slipped to the floor. Mrs. Pettigrew asked
how he was getting on, and her unhappy husband replied that he was just
going to begin. His hands were trembling, and he had given up trying to
smoke. He sought to detain her by talking about the boy's curls; but she
went away, taking the child with her. As she closed the door he groaned
heavily, and she reopened it to ask if he felt unwell. He answered in
the negative, and she left him. The last person to see Mr. Pettigrew
alive was Eliza Day, the housemaid. She took a letter to him between
twelve and one o'clock. Usually he disliked being disturbed at his
writing; but this time, in answer to her knock, he cried eagerly, "Come
in!" When she entered he insisted on her taking a chair, and asked her
how all her people were, and if there was anything he could do for them.
Several times she rose to leave, but he would not allow her to do so.
Eliza mentioned this in the kitchen when she returned to it. Her master
was naturally a reserved man who seldom spoke to his servants, which
rendered his behavior on this occasion the more remarkable.

[Illustration]

As announced in the evening papers yesterday, the servant sent to
the study at half-past one to see why Mr. Pettigrew was not coming to
lunch, found him lifeless on the floor. The knife clutched in his hand
showed that he had done the fatal deed himself; and Dr. Southwick,
of Hyde Park, who was on the spot within ten minutes of the painful
discovery, is of opinion that life had been extinct for about half an
hour. The body was lying among Jubilee odes. On the table were a dozen
or more sheets of "copy," which, though only spoiled pages, showed that
the deceased had not succumbed without a struggle. On one he had begun,
"Fifty years have come and gone since a fair English maiden ascended the
throne of England." Another stopped short at, "To every loyal Englishman
the Jubil----" A third sheet commenced with, "Though there have been a
number of royal Jubilees in the history of the world, probably none has
awakened the same interest as----" and a fourth began, "1887 will be
known to all future ages as the year of Jub----" One sheet bore the
sentence, "Heaven help me!" and it is believed that these were the last
words the deceased ever penned.

Mr. Pettigrew was a most estima