entleman gave the child
an indignant shove which caused her to seat herself violently upon the
pavement; the bag banged hard against the bricks and delivered up its
trust, and the apples scudded away into the gutter.

Cecil laughed amusedly as the little creature picked herself up crying,
and proceeded to institute search for the missing treasure. A kindly
policeman, who doubtless had children of his own, stopped on his beat,
and helped her, wiping the mud from the rescued fruit with his
handkerchief, and securing all again with a newspaper and a stout twine
string which he took from his pocket; then they went away together, the
officer carrying the bundle and the child trotting contentedly in the
lee of him. They seemed to be old acquaintances.

Nothing else happened along to amuse him, so Mr. Cumberland let the
velvet folds fall back in their place and came over to the fire. He
had been suffering with a heavy cold, and found confinement to the
house in the last degree irksome. His wife was too much engrossed with
her book to be willing to lay it aside for his entertainment, and he
spurned her suggestion of the evening paper, so there was nothing for
it but to sulk over a cigar and audibly curse the weather.

A sharp ring at the door-bell, tardily answered by a servant, and then
footsteps approached the parlor door. Husband and wife looked up with
interest--with expectation. Was it a visitor? No; only the servant
with a telegram which he handed Mr. Cumberland, and then withdrew.
Cecil turned the thin envelope in his hand inquisitively. He was fond
of having every thing pass through his own hands--of knowing all the
ins and outs, the minutiae of daily happenings. "What is it?"
questioned Ethel, indolently.

"A dispatch for you. Shall I open it?"

"If you like. I hate dispatches. They always suggest unpleasant
possibilities. It's a local, so I guess it's from my aunt, about that
rubbishing dinner of hers."

Cecil tore open the envelope and read the few words it contained with a
lengthening visage; then he let his hand fall, and stared blankly
across at his wife.

"It's from that fellow! and it's about the child," he said, uneasily.

"What fellow? What child? Not mine! Give it to me quickly, Cecil.
How slow you are!" And she snatched the telegram from his unresisting
hand. Hastily she scanned the words, her breath coming in gasps, her
fingers trembling so that she could scarcely hold the paper.