It was growing dark, and Miss Pepper led the way into the house, and bade the boy sit down while she hunted up a tallow candle and lighted it from a coal taken from the hearth. There was certainly a tear on her hard face as she blew the coal to a blaze, and the pain in her heart kept growing until with the aid of the candle she read: “IONA, _October 8th, 18—_. “TO MISS JERUSHA PEPPER: ALLEN’S HILL, ONTARIO CO., N.Y. (_via_ LIVONIA STATION.) “There has been a railroad accident, and your niece Edna’s husband was killed. They were married yesterday morning in Buffalo. MISS GEORGIE BURTON.” “Edna’s husband! Married yesterday morning in Buffalo! What does it mean?” she exclaimed, forgetting the dreary look, and the tears, and the harsh discipline, and in her amazement seizing the boy by the collar, as if he had been the offending Edna, and asking him again “what it meant, and where he got that precious piece of news, and who Edna’s husband was, and how he knew it was true, and if it was not, how he dared come there with such ridiculous stuff and tip her milk over and charge her two dollars to boot?” She had come to herself by this time, and the milk and the money were of more importance to her than the story, which she believed was false; and she continued to shake the boy until he twisted himself loose from her grasp and retreated toward the door. “Goll darn ye,” he said, “a pretty actin’ woman you be, with some of yer relations dead. What do I know about it? Nothin’, only it was telegraphed to the office this afternoon, and they posted me off to once to tell you ’bout it. I’ll take the two dollars, or if you won’t they’ll send you a writ to-morry;” and the boy, grown bold from the fact that he was standing on the door-step and out of the vixen’s reach, began to whistle “Shoo Fly” with a great deal of energy. People like Miss Pepper usually have a great terror of a _writ_, and without stopping to consider the probabilities of the case, the good woman reluctantly counted out two dollars, and handing them to the boy, bade him be off and never darken her door again. Once alone, Miss Pepper read and _re-read_ the telegram, which gave her no further intelligence than that first imparted to her. There had been a railroad accident out west and Edna’s husband was killed. What could it mean, and who was Edna’s husband? Then as she thought of Canandaigua and reflected that somebody there knew something about it, she resolved upon going to town on the morrow and ascertaining for herself what it all was about. But the next morning was ushered in with a driving rain, which came in under Miss Jerusha’s front door, and drove into the cellar and through that patch of old shingles on the roof, and kept the old dame hurrying hither and thither with mop, and broom, and pail, and drove Canandaigua from her mind as utterly impracticable.