he explained.

"But you're sure Grandmamma isn't _dead_?" said poor Pamela, looking up
piteously in Barbara's face. "Duke was afraid she might be if us didn't
come soon."

"But now you _have_ come she'll soon get well again, please God," said
Barbara, though her own heart beat tremulously as she made her way round
by the back entrance.

It was Toby after all who "broke" the happy tidings. In spite of all
Barbara could do--of all her "Hush, Toby, then,"'s "Gently my little
doggie,"'s--he _would_ rush in to the parlour as soon as the door was
opened in such a rapture of joyful barking, tail wagging and rushing and
dashing, that Grandmamma looked up from the knitting she was trying to
fancy she was doing in her arm-chair by the fire, and Grandpapa put down
his five days' old newspaper which he was reading by the window, with a
curious flutter of sudden hope all through them, notwithstanding their
many disappointments.

"It is you, Barbara, back again at last," began Grandmamma. "How white
you look, my poor Barbara--and--why, what's the matter with Toby? Is he
so pleased to see us old people again?"

"He _is_ very pleased, ma'am--he's a very wise and a very good feeling
dog is Toby, there's no doubt. And one that knows when to be sad
and--and when to be rejoiced, as I might say," said Barbara, though her
voice trembled with the effort to speak calmly.

Something seemed to flash across the room to Grandmamma as Mrs. Twiss
spoke--down fell the knitting, the needles, and the wool, all in a
tangle, as the old lady started to her feet.

"Barbara--Barbara Twiss!" she cried. "What do you mean? Oh Barbara, you
have news of our darlings? Marmaduke, my dear husband, do you hear?" and
she raised her voice, "she has brought us news at last," and Grandmamma
tottered forward a few steps and then, growing suddenly dazed and giddy,
would have fallen had not Grandpapa and Barbara started towards her from
different sides and caught her. But she soon recovered herself, and
eagerly signed to Barbara to "tell." How Barbara told she never knew. It
seemed to her that Grandmamma guessed the words before she spoke them,
and looking back on it all afterwards she could recollect nothing but a
sort of joyous confusion--Grandpapa rushing out without his hat, but
stopping to take his stick all the same--Grandmamma holding by the table
to steady herself when, in another moment, they were all back
again--then a cluster all together--of Grandpapa,