“Yes, ma’am, and the most hawfullest part of it was, as it was done in the night afore his darter’s wedding-day, and his blessed darter herself was the first to find her father’s dead body in the morning.”

“Gude guide us!” exclaimed Rose Cameron, putting down her untasted tea, and staring at the speaker in blank dismay.

“You may read all about it in the paper, ma’am,” said the housekeeper.

“When did it a’ happen?” huskily inquired the girl, whose face was now ashen pale.

“On the night before last, ma’am.  The same night you were traveling up to London by the Great Northern.  And bless us and save us, the poor bride must have found her poor pa’s dead body just about the time you arrived at home here, ma’am, for the paper says it was ten o’clock.”

“Ou! wae’s me! wae’s me! wae’s me!” cried Rose, covering her ashen-pale face with her hands and sinking back on her pillow.

“Oh, indeed I’m sorry I told you anything about it, ma’am, if it gives you such a turn.  I did hope it would amuse you while you sipped your tea.  But la! there! some ladies do be so narvy!”

“An’ that’s the way the braw wedding was stappit!” cried Rose, without even hearing the words of her attendant.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Rogers, not understanding the allusion of the speaker, “that was the way the wedding was stopped, in course.  No wedding could go on after that, you know, ma’am, anyhow, let alone the bride falling into a fit the minute she saw the bloody corpse of her murdered father, and being of a raving manyyack ever since.  Instead of a wedding and a feast there will be an inquest and a funeral.”

“Was—­there—­a—­robbery?” inquired Rose Cameron in a low, faint, frightened tone.

“Ay, ma’am, a great robbery of money and jewelry, and no clue yet to the vilyuns as did it!  But won’t you drink your tea, ma’am?”

“Na, na, I dinna need it now.  Ou! this is awfu’!  Wae worth the day!” exclaimed the horror-stricken girl, shivering from head to foot as with an ague.

“Indeed, I am very sorry I told you anything about it, ma’am.  But I thought it would interest you.  I didn’t think it would shock you.  But, indeed, if I were you, I wouldn’t take on so about people I didn’t know anything about.  And you didn’t know anything about them.  You haven’t even asked the names,” urged the worthy woman.

“Na, na, I did na ken onything anent them; but it is unco awfu’!” said Rose, in hurried, tremulous tones.

Not for all her hidden treasures would she have had it suspected that she even remotely knew anything about the murder or the man who was murdered.

“And yet you take on about them.  Ah! your heart is too tender, ma’am.  If you are going to take up everybody else’s crosses as well as your own, you’ll never get through this world, ma’am.  Take an old woman’s word for that.”