"Well, I don't know," returned his sister dubiously. "It was only a warning, the doctors said, and I suppose Uncle Richard thinks he is all right now with care; and there's a wheel within a wheel there, Gorham. Didn't you notice to-day," lowering her voice dramatically, "that I didn't say a word about Jack? Jack is a sore subject." She nodded her head several times by way of emphasis.
"I dare say," returned the other. "The Bryants must have known that he was very much cut up by his father's marriage."
"Oh, they did; or the girls did. The mother never was allowed to know. I became very well acquainted with this child Mildred in the few days I stayed at Pearfield, but she told me nothing. Aunt Love told me the whole story, for Mrs. Van Tassel had confided in her. Aunt Love is perfectly devoted to Uncle Richard's wife."
"Humph!"
"They have been through a great deal in a year. I suppose you heard through Jack, though I knew nothing about it, that Mrs. Van Tassel's little brother and sister took scarlet fever and died in the same week."
"Yes, I knew that. Jack felt it deeply. I am sure he must have written home very kindly about it. It occurred only about a month after the wedding."
"Very likely he did. I don't know. Then Mrs. Bryant grew weaker and weaker through the winter. They took her South, and surrounded her with every luxury, but in April she died."
"No. I didn't know that."
"Yes, she died very peacefully and happily; but she had not been gone a fortnight when Uncle Richard had that stroke."
"What a procession of calamities!"