My father, who was a truly humane man, was excessively shocked by the letter; and at first, so much engrossed by the account of the manner of the young man’s death, and by the idea of the shock and distress of the mother and sister, that he scarcely adverted to the unintelligible messages to me. He observed, indeed, that the writer of the letter seemed to be a fool, and to have very little feeling. We agreed that my mother was the fittest person to break the matter to poor Lady de Brantefield. If my mother should not feel herself equal to the task, my father said he would undertake it himself, though he had rather have a tooth pulled out than go through it. We went together to my mother. We found her in hysterics, and Fowler beside her; my mother, the moment she saw us, recovered some recollection, and pushing Fowler from her with both her hands, she cried, “Take her away--out of my sight--out of my sight.” I took the hartshorn from Fowler, and bid her leave the room; ordering her, at her peril, not to leave the house. “Why did you tell Mrs. Harrington so suddenly, Mrs. Fowler?” my father began, supposing that my mother’s hysterics were the consequence of having been told, too suddenly, the news of Lord Mowbray’s death. “I did not tell her, sir; I never uttered a sentence of his lordship’s _death_.” In her confusion, the woman betrayed her knowledge of the circumstance, though on her first speaking to me she had not mentioned it. While I assisted and soothed my mother, I heard my father questioning her. “She heard the news that morning, early, in a letter from Lord Mowbray’s gentleman--had not yet had the heart to mention it to her lady--believed she had given a hint of it to Lady Anne--was indeed so flurried, and still was so flurried--” My father, perceiving that Fowler did not know what she was saying, good-naturedly attributed her confusion to her sorrow for her ladies; and did not wonder, he said, she was flurried: he was not nervous, but it had given him a shock. “Sit down, poor Fowler.” The words caught my mother’s ear, who had now recovered her recollection completely; and with an effort, which I had never before seen her make, to command her own feelings--an effort, for which I thank her, as I knew it arose from her strong affection for me, she calmly said, “I will bear that woman--that fiend, in my sight, a few minutes longer, for your sake, Harrington, till her confession be put in writing and signed: this will, I suppose, be necessary.” “I desire to know, directly, what all this means?” said my father, speaking in a certain repressed tone, which we and which Fowler knew to be the symptom of his being on the point of breaking out into violent anger.