.

"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at once
knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in
the chamber of death.

"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.

After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.

"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.

"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively, yet with an
answering gleam of ready response to the other's curiosity in the quick
lift of her soft blue eyes.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still
sat up straight with a slight knit of intensity on her fair forehead,
between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.

"Did you--hear anything?" she asked in a low voice with a glance toward
the door.

"I was just across the hall in the south parlour, and that door was
open and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.

"Then you must have----"

"I couldn't help it."

"Everything?"

"Most of it."

"What was it?"

"The old story."

"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living
on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him."

Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door.

When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I know how he
felt," said she. "He had always been so prudent himself, and worked
hard at his profession, and there Edward had never done anything but
spend, and it must have looked to him as if Edward was living at his
expense, but he wasn't."

"No, he wasn't."

"It was the way father left the property--that all the children should
have a home here--and he left money enough to buy the food and all if
we had all come home."

"Yes."

"And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will,
and Henry ought to have remembered it."

"Yes, he ought."

"Did he say hard things?"

"Pretty hard from what I heard."

"What?"

"I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he
thought he had better go away."

"What did Edward say?"

"That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if he
was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then----"

"What?"

"Then he laughed."

"What did Henry say?"

"I didn't hear him say anything, but----"

"But what?"

"I saw him when he came out of this room."

"He looked mad?"

"You've seen him when he looked so."

Emma nodded; the expression of horror