r the pressure of which Nora's heart heaved
convulsively. And John went out of the room bewildered, and sat
himself down on the landing-place, and wondered whether he was awake or
sleeping; and a cold numbness crept over one side of him, and his head
felt very heavy, with a loud, booming noise in his ears. Suddenly his
wife stood by his side, and said, in a very low voice,

"John, run for Mr. Morgan,--make haste. But mind--don't speak to any one
on the way. Quick, quick!"

"Is she dying?"

"I don't know. Why not die before?" said Mrs. Avenel, between her teeth;
"but Mr. Morgan is a discreet, friendly man."

"A true Blue!" muttered poor John, as if his mind wandered; and rising
with difficulty, he stared at his wife a moment, shook his head, and was
gone.

An hour or two later, a little, covered, taxed cart stopped at Mr.
Avenel's cottage, out of which stepped a young man with pale face and
spare form, dressed in the Sunday suit of a rustic craftsman; then a
homely, but pleasant, honest face bent down to him, smilingly; and two
arms emerging from under covert of a red cloak extended an infant, which
the young man took tenderly. The baby was cross and very sickly; it
began to cry. The father hushed, and rocked, and tossed it, with the air
of one to whom such a charge was familiar.

"He'll be good when we get in, Mark," said the young woman, as she
extracted from the depths of the cart a large basket containing poultry
and home-made bread.

"Don't forget the flowers that the squire's gardener gave us," said Mark
the Poet.

Without aid from her husband, the wife took down basket and nosegay,
settled her cloak, smoothed her gown, and said, "Very odd! they don't
seem to expect us, Mark. How still the house is! Go and knock; they
can't ha' gone to bed yet."

Mark knocked at the door--no answer. A light passed rapidly across the
windows on the upper floor, but still no one came to his summons. Mark
knocked again. A gentleman dressed in clerical costume, now coming from
Lansinere Park, on the opposite side of the road, paused at the sound of
Mark's second and more impatient knock, and said civilly,

"Are you not the young folks my friend John Avenel told me this morning
he expected to visit him?"

"Yes, please, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Fairfield, dropping her courtesy.
"You remember me! and this is my dear good man!"

"What! Mark the Poet?" said the curate of Lansmere, with a smile. "Come
to write squibs for the elec