arded."

At this moment the door of the office opens and closes noisily, and a
man comes rather unsteadily toward them. It is Smith, the book-peddler,
and evidently much intoxicated.

"Hallo, Smith," says the night clerk, jocosely, as Mr. Belknap turns
away, "you seem to have rheumatism, and I suspect you find more fun than
business in W----."

"Town ain't much on literature," retorts Mr. Smith, amiably, "but it's
the devil and all for draw poker. I've raked in a pot, and I'm going on
to the next pious town, so

'If you are waking, call me early.'

Old top, I'm going west."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

SOME EXCELLENT ADVICE.

Early on the following morning, there was unusual stir about Mapleton.
John Burrill was to be buried that day, and the sad funeral preparations
were going on. People were moving about, making the bustle the more
noticeable by their visible efforts to step softly, and by the low
monotonous hum of their voices.

Up stairs, the usual quiet reigned.

Sybil was sleeping under the influence of powerful opiates, administered
to insure her against the possibility of being overheard in her ravings,
or of waking to a realization of the events taking place below stairs.

Evan, too, had been quieted by the use of brandy and morphine, and Mrs.
Lamotte kept watch at his bedside, while Constance, in Sybil's chamber,
maintained a similar vigil. Neither of the two watchers manifested any
interest in the funeral preparations, nor did they feel any.

"I shall not be present at the burial," Mrs. Lamotte had said to her
husband. "Sybil's illness and Evan's will furnish sufficient excuse,
and--nothing constrains me to do honor to John Burrill _now_."

Mr. Lamotte opened his lips to remonstrate, but catching a look upon the
face of his wife that he had learned to its fullest meaning, he closed
them again and went grimly below stairs, and, through all the day
previous to the departure of the funeral cortege, Jasper Lamotte was the
only member of that aristocratic family who was visible to the curious
gaze of the strangers who attended upon the burial preparations.

Early in the forenoon an unexpected delegation arrived at the entrance
of Mapleton.

First, came Doctor Benoit, driving alone in his time-honored gig, the
only vehicle he had been seen to enter within the memory of W----.

Close behind him, a carriage containing four gentlemen, all manifestly
persons of more than ordinary importance, Mr. O'