THREAT.

Miss Stanbury for a long time persisted in being neither better nor
worse. Sir Peter would not declare her state to be precarious, nor
would he say that she was out of danger; and Mr. Martin had been so
utterly prostrated by the nearly-fatal effects of his own mistake
that he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject
with any spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply
reply that Sir Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus
add to, rather than diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied
opinion which prevailed through the city. On one morning it was
absolutely asserted within the limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury
was dying,--and it was believed for half a day at the bank that she
was then lying in articulo mortis. There had got about, too, a report
that a portion of the property had only been left to Miss Stanbury
for her life, that the Burgesses would be able to reclaim the
houses in the city, and that a will had been made altogether in
favour of Dorothy, cutting out even Brooke from any share in the
inheritance;--and thus Exeter had a good deal to say respecting
the affairs and state of health of our old friend. Miss Stanbury's
illness, however, was true enough. She was much too ill to hear
anything of what was going on;--too ill to allow Martha to talk to
her at all about the outside public. When the invalid herself would
ask questions about the affairs of the world, Martha would be very
discreet and turn away from the subject. Miss Stanbury, for instance,
ill as she was, exhibited a most mundane interest, not exactly in
Camilla French's marriage, but in the delay which that marriage
seemed destined to encounter. "I dare say he'll slip out of it yet,"
said the sick lady to her confidential servant. Then Martha had
thought it right to change the subject, feeling it to be wrong
that an old lady on her death-bed should be taking joy in the
disappointment of her young neighbour. Martha changed the subject,
first to jelly, and then to the psalms of the day. Miss Stanbury
was too weak to resist; but the last verse of the last psalm of the
evening had hardly been finished before she remarked that she would
never believe it till she saw it. "It's all in the hands of Him as is
on high, mum," said Martha, turning her eyes up to the ceiling, and
closing the book at the same time, with a look strongly indicative of
displeasure.

Miss Stanbury understood it all as well a