walked up
to him and grasped his arm.

"What is it, Tom?" she said almost clinging to him.

Poor Tom was hardly equal to the occasion. He was young, and hated
scenes, and Mrs. Sefton was looking at them both, and he felt uncommonly
choky himself; but Edna, who had followed Bessie, said promptly:

"Don't be afraid of telling Bessie, Mr. Lambert; she knows that Hatty is
not so well. You have come to fetch her--have you not?--because Hatty
had another bad fainting fit, and your father thinks her very ill."

"That is about it," blurted out Tom. "Can you get ready and come back
with me, Bessie? Hatty asked for you last night for the first time, and
then father said I had better come and fetch you; so I took the last
train to London, and slept at Uncle George's, and came on this morning."

"And Hatty is very ill?" asked Bessie, with a sort of desperate calmness
that appeared very ominous to Tom, for he answered nervously:

"Well, she is pretty bad. Father says it is a sudden failure. It is her
heart; and he says he always expected it. He never did think well of
Hatty, only he would not tell us so--what was the use? he said. But now
these fainting attacks have made him anxious, for he says one can never
tell what may happen; and then he said you must be fetched at once."

"I suppose we can start by the next train, Tom?"

"Yes, by the 3:15; there is none before that. We must catch the 6:05
from Paddington, so you will have time to look about you."

"Let me help you," exclaimed Edna eagerly. "Mamma, will you send Brandon
to us?" And she followed Bessie.

Richard came into the room that moment, and took possession of Tom,
carrying him off to the garden and stable-yard, and trying to make the
time pass in a less irksome manner. Richard could show his sympathy for
Bessie in no other way than this, and he felt sorry for Tom, who was
feeling awkward among so many strangers, and was trying to repress his
feelings, after the fashion of young men.

"I am afraid your sister is very much cut up about this," observed
Richard presently.

"Oh, yes, she will take it uncommonly badly; she and Hatty are such
chums."

"Yes, but I trust that your sister is not dangerously ill?"

"Well, she does not seem so to me," replied Tom vaguely. "She is weak,
of course; any one would be weak after such an attack; but she looks and
talks much as usual, only she is too tired to get up."

"And it is her heart, you say?"

"Well, my father sa