Mrs. Malone complained incessantly of face-ache and looked proportionately wretched, and was occasionally seen stealing out of Mrs. Maccabe’s parlour, where she had been “having a read” of one of Lizzie’s letters, for Denis was a miserable correspondent. The young people were doing well, and Lizzie proudly informed her aunt that “no one out there knew her from a real lady,” but this was a mistake on Lizzie’s part, and ignorance is bliss. The Major was more from home than formerly, and received more telegrams and more bills than of yore, was as red in the face as a Christmas turkey-cock, and was waited on by his household with an even greater amount of assiduous apologetic attention. Cuckoo and Betty scoured the country with the dogs, or sat with their heads bent over an atlas or a French dictionary, and Miss Dopping, a prisoner in the fetters of rheumatism, occupied her usual seat in the window, and watched passing events, and delivered powerful and pungent criticisms on men, women, and things. As for Belle, she read novels and drank tea, and wrote letters (George Holroyd was frequently favoured), refurbished her wardrobe against his return, and mentally--oh, happiest moments! made an extravagant catalogue of her trousseau and Indian outfit. One evening, as Mrs. Redmond and her two companions were sitting at tea, the door burst open, and Maria Finny hurried in unannounced. She wore an old garden hat and shawl, and had evidently come in by the back way, and kitchen entrance. “There’s terrible work at Bridgetstown,” she panted, “and I have just run over to tell you.” “What, what has happened this time?” enquired Belle, with bright excited eyes. “The Major is dead.” “Dead!” echoed Mrs. Redmond. “Nonsense!” “Yes, went off in an apoplexy, or a stroke. Mrs. Malone looked into the study an hour after lunch (indeed it was about Jane Bolland’s bill), and you know he was always a heavy eater. She saw him lying face downwards on the table, with a telegram in his hand. She screamed to Jane, and between them they lifted him up, and he was dead, stone dead, with the red cat sitting beside him. Mrs. Malone has been from one faint into another ever since, and I just ran over to tell you,” and she gasped for breath. After this announcement there was a profound silence for some seconds, and then Betty said: “How dreadful! How sudden! Why I was speaking to him this morning as he drove past the gate.” “Well, you will never speak to him again,” returned Maria, emphatically. “Poor Mrs. Malone,” continued Betty. “Who is with her and Cuckoo?” “No one, so I just come to fetch you, Betty; you know the ways of the house; they are used to you, and there must be some one to keep things together. They say Mrs. Malone is in for some illness from the shock, and you know what Cuckoo is. She has been screeching and crying ever since it was found, at three o’clock.”