Charlotte Delves took down the lemonade waiter, and Selina drew me to her. "The message, Anne!—the message! Did you see Mr. Gregg?" I gave her the message as I had received it. It was well, she said, and turned away from me in her restlessness. Mr. Martin came in the afternoon: and from that time he seemed to be a great deal with Selina. A day or two passed on, bringing no change: she continued very ill, and George Heneage was not found. I had another walk to Hallam on the Friday. Philip King's funeral was to be on the Saturday, and the walk appeared to have some connexion with that event. Selina sent no note this time, but a mysterious message. "See Mr. Gregg alone as before, Anne," were the orders she gave me. "Tell him that the funeral is fixed for eleven o'clock to-morrow morning, and he must be at hand, and watch his time. You can mention that I am now too ill to write." "Tell him—what do you say, Selina?" "Tell him exactly what I have told you; he will understand, though you do not. Why do you make me speak?" she added, irritably. "I send you in preference to a servant on this private business." I discharged the commission; and, with the exception of about one minute on my return, did not see Selina again that day. It was said in the household that she was a trifle better. Mr. Edwin Barley had been as good as his word, and a third doctor attended now, a solemn old gentleman in black dress clothes and gold spectacles. It transpired, no one but Miss Delves knowing with what truth, that he agreed with his two brethren in the treatment they had pursued. Saturday morning. The house woke up to a quiet bustle. People were going and coming, servants were moving about and preparing, all in a subdued decorous manner. The servants had been put in mourning—Mr. Edwin Barley was all in black, and Charlotte Delves rustled from room to room in rich black silk. Philip King had been related to her in a very distant degree. Mrs. Edwin Barley was no worse; better, if anything, the doctors said. From what could be gathered by us, who were not doctors, the throat was a trifle better; she herself weaker. The funeral was late. The clocks were striking eleven as it wound down the avenue on its way to the church, an old-fashioned little structure, situate at right angles between the house and Hallam. In the first black chariot sat the clergyman, Mr. Martin; then followed the hearse; then two mourning-coaches. In the first were Mr. Edwin Barley, his brother, and two gentlemen whom I did not know—they were the mourners; in the other were the six pall-bearers. Some men walked in hatbands, and the carriages were drawn by four horses, bearing plumes. "Is it out of sight, Anne?" The questioner was my aunt, for it was at her window I stood, peeping beside the blind. It had been out of sight some minutes, I told her, and must have passed the lodge.