ely and aimless than it was now.

Meanwhile the party at Grey's Park had gathered around the fire in the
drawing-room, and Geraldine was repeating to her sister the particulars
of her presentation to the queen, shivering occasionally as she heard
the sleet and snow beating against the window, for with the going down
of the sun the storm had commenced again with redoubled fury, and the
wind howled dismally as it swept past the corners of the house, bearing
with it blinding sheets of snow and rain, and sounding some times like
human sobbing as it died away in the distance.

"Is there some one crying outside, or is it the wind?" Mr. Jerrold
asked, as the sobbing seemed like a wail of anguish, while there crept
over him one of those indefinable presentiments which we have all felt
at times and could not explain; a presentiment in his case of coming
evil, whose shadow was already upon him.

"It is the wind," Grey said. "What an awful storm for Thanksgiving
night!" and rising, he walked to the window just as outside there was
the sound of a fast-coming vehicle, which stopped at the side piazza.

A few moments later the door of the drawing-room opened, and a servant
appeared with a note, which she handed to Mr. Jerrold, saying:

"Sam Powley brought this from your sister. He says your father is very
bad."

Mr. Jerrold was not greatly surprised. It seemed to him he had expected
this, for the sobbing of the wind had sounded to him like his father's
voice calling to him in the storm. Taking the note from the girl, he
tore it open and read:

"DEAR BROTHER: On my return home I found our father much worse,
indeed, I have never seen him so bad, and he insists upon your
coming to him to-night, so I have sent Sam for you, with
instructions to call on his return for our clergyman, Mr. Sanford,
as he wishes particularly to see him. Come at once, and _come
alone_."

"HANNAH."

The words "come alone" were underscored, and Burton felt intuitively
that the secret he had long suspected and which had shadowed his
father's life, was at last coming to him unsought. He was sure of it,
and knew why Hannah had written "come alone." It meant that Grey must
not come with him, and when the boy who had stood beside him and read
the note with him, exclaimed, "Grandpa is worse; he is going to die; let
us go at once," he said, very decidedly:

"No, my son, not to-night. To-morrow you shall go and stay all day, but
n