“Well, my dear,” Miss Farrell said, when this conversation was reported to her, “you know what my feelings are; but I am not dull to the credit of the family. It being fully understood what my motive is, I shall certainly appear to-morrow evening, and do my very best to make things go off well. I will play your dear father’s accompaniment with the greatest pleasure. He has the remains of a very fine voice, and he has science, too, though it is old-fashioned. So has your brother George a beautiful voice; I always wished him to cultivate it. We must do everything, Winnie, both you and I, to make things go off well. You are not in good spirits, it is true,--neither am I,--but we must forget all that for the credit of the house. And how do you think he is himself?” she added after a pause. “He looks very well,” said Winnie. “I see no signs of illness. Edward”--she paused a little with a faint smile,--“I think I should say Dr. Langton, for I never see him”-- “Oh, my dear, don’t judge him unjustly!--he thinks that is necessary.” “You all think it is necessary,” cried Winnie, with a little outburst of feeling, “to make me as unhappy as possible. I mean to say that I think--I hope he is mistaken. Even doctors,” she said, with a smile, “have been mistaken before now.” “That is very true,” said Miss Farrell gravely, and then she rose and kissed the pale face opposite to her. “Anyhow, my dear, you and I will do our best for him as long as there are strangers in the house.” Winifred was worn out by the strain of these troubled days, and by the self-controversy that had been going on within her. She fell asleep early in profound exhaustion, the dead sleep of forces overstrained and heart stupefied with trouble. She woke suddenly in the early dawn of the morning, while as yet everything was indistinct. What had woke her, or if it was any external incident at all that had done so, she could not tell at first; there seemed a tingle and vibration in the pale air. Was it the early twittering which had begun faintly among the thick foliage outside? She listened, rising up in her bed, with an intensity for which there seemed no reason, for no definite alarm occurred to her mind. Everything was still, not a sound audible but those first faint chirpings, interrogative, tentative, from the trees. She was about to compose herself to rest again, when suddenly there sounded tingling through the silence the sound of a bell, a little angry, impatient jingle repeated, tearing the stillness. Winifred was too much startled and confused to realise what it was, but she got up hastily, and, throwing her dressing-gown round her, opened her door to hear better. The thought that came first to her mind was, that the summons was at the door, and that it meant one of the boys coming home. Her heart leaped to her throat with excitement. The boys had come home at all sorts of hours in the time which was past, but now, what could this summons be? It came