Mrs. Mowbray immediately followed him, and for several minutes a sort of heavy silence seemed to have fallen on every individual present--not a word being uttered by any one, and the eyes of all fixing themselves on the face of Fanny, who kept her place as if spell-bound, but with a countenance that expressed a feeling approaching to terror. "This is not to be borne!" exclaimed Rosalind abruptly. "Excuse us for a moment," she added, addressing those who still remained in the breakfast-room.--"Come with me, Fanny, and let us know the worst at once." The two girls left the room together; and in a very few minutes afterwards a servant entered, the violent agitation of whose manner announced the news he brought before he spoke it. "My master ... my poor master is dead!" were the words he uttered; and their effect upon a party assembled for an occasion of so much festivity, and who had so lately parted with their kind and happy host in perfect health, may be easily imagined. One single word in reply to the eager chorus of inquiry told the manner of his death-- "Apoplexy!" The scene which followed was what such an event must necessarily produce. No single creature present, except one pretty portionless young lady who thought it very likely that Mr. Charles might now fall in love with her, could by possibility be benefited by the death of the amiable man who had just breathed his last, and it is therefore probable that the universal expression of regret was sincere in quality, though its quantity might have been somewhat preternaturally increased by the circumstances in which the parties were relatively placed when the awful event was made known. Several tears were shed, and some glasses of cold water called for, while the carriages were getting ready; the gentlemen all looked grave, and many of the ladies pale; but in less than half an hour they had all left the house, not one of them, as it happened, being on terms of sufficient intimacy with the family to justify their offering to remain at such a moment. It is easy enough to dismiss from the scene persons whose feelings were so slightly interested in it; but far different would be the task were I to attempt painting the heartfelt anguish of those who remained. Mr. Mowbray had been so deeply yet so tranquilly loved by every member of his family--his intercourse with them had been so uniformly that of constant endearment, unchequered by any mixture of rough temper or unreasonable caprice, that their love for him was so natural and inevitable, that they had never reasoned upon it, or were fully aware of its intensity, till the dreadful moment in which they learned that they had lost him for ever.