“I must leave you, my dear,” said she, at last.  “Think how your dear mother bowed her head to His will.  Pray to your Father in Heaven, Who alone can comfort you.  I must go to your brother, and when I return, I hope you will be more composed.”

The pain of witnessing the passionate sorrow of Henrietta was no good preparation for carrying the same tidings to one, whose bodily weakness made it to be feared that he might suffer even more; but Mrs. Geoffrey Langford feared to lose her composure by stopping to reflect, and hastened down from Henrietta’s room with a hurried step.

She knocked at Fred’s door, and was answered by his voice.  As she entered he looked at her with anxious eyes, and before she could speak, said, “I know what you are come to tell me.”

“Yes, Fred,” said she; “but how?”

“I was sure of it,” said Fred.  “I knew I should never see her again; and there were sounds this morning.  Did not I hear poor Henrietta crying?”

“She has been crying very much,” said his aunt.

“Ah! she would never believe it,” said Fred.  “But after last Sunday—­ O, no one could look at that face, and think she was to stay here any longer!”

“We could not wish it for her sake,” said his aunt, for the first time feeling almost overcome.

“Let me hear how it was,” said Frederick, after a pause.

His aunt repeated what she had before told Henrietta, and then he asked quickly, “What did you do?  I did not hear you ring.”

“No, that was what I was afraid of.  I was going to call some one, when I met grandpapa, who was just going up.  He came with me, and—­and was very kind—­then he sent me to lie down; but I could not sleep, and went to wait for Henrietta’s waking.”

Fred gave a long, deep, heavy sigh, and said, “Poor Henrietta!  Is she very much overcome?”

“So much, that I hardly know how to leave her.”

“Don’t stay with me, then, Aunt Geoffrey.  It is very kind in you, but I don’t think anything is much good to me.”  He hid his face as he spoke thus, in a tone of the deepest dejection.

“Nothing but prayer, my dear Fred,” said she, gently.  “Then I will go to your sister again.”

“Thank you.”  And she had reached the door when he asked, “When does Uncle Geoffrey come?”

“By the four o’clock train,” she answered, and moved on.

Frederick hid his head under the clothes, and gave way to a burst of agony, which, silent as it was, was even more intense than his sister’s.  O! the blank that life seemed without her look, her voice, her tone! the frightful certainty that he should never see her more!  Then it would for a moment seem utterly incredible that she should thus have passed away; but then returned the conviction, and he felt as if he could not even exist under it.  But this excessive oppression and consciousness of misery seemed chiefly to come upon him when alone.