"It is fortunate," he said, "that I got away from the office an hour earlier than usual. I shall be at home when Lizzie returns from her work, and I want to be the first to tell her the good news. How excited she will be! There was a friend at the house last night, who told us our fortunes. Lizzie is very fond of having her fortune told. 'There, father,' she says, 'didn't my fortune say that I was to receive a letter? And I've got one.' As if there was anything out of the way in receiving a letter! Last night she was told that a great and wonderful surprise was in store for her. Well, there is, but I am certain the fortune-teller knew as much about its nature as the man in the moon."
"And Mary?" I said. "Will you tell her to-night?"
"No," replied Mr. Melladew, "we will wait till she comes home to-morrow. When she sees her uncle from Australia sitting in my arm-chair, she won't know what to think of it. Happy girls, happy girls!"
"And happy father and mother, too," I said.
"Yes, yes," he said, with great feeling, "and happy father and mother too."
It was in no envious spirit that I contrasted his good luck with my bad, but had I suspected what the next few hours had in store for him, I should have thanked God for my lot. We have reason to be profoundly grateful for the ills we escape.
[CHAPTER II.]
I AM THE RECIPIENT OF TERRIBLE NEWS.
On Saturday morning I rose early, with the strange feelings of a man whose habits of life had been suddenly and violently wrenched out of their usual course. I wandered up and down the stairs and into all the rooms in the house, and to the street-door, where I stood looking vacantly along the street, perhaps for the situation I had lost, as though it were something I had dropped by accident and could pick up again. Two or three neighbours passed and gave me good-morning, and one paused and asked if I was not well.
"Not well?" I echoed, somewhat irritably; "I am well, quite well. What makes you think otherwise?"