"To the museum to take father this telegram, which has just come from 'Gay Bowers,'" she said. "It brings sad news, Nan. Uncle George is dead."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, inexpressibly shocked, "and we were just talking of him. How dreadful for Aunt Patty!"
"Yes; we think the end must have come suddenly," Olive said. "But I cannot stay to talk now."
And she was gone.
"YOU SHOULD SEND HER INTO THE COUNTRY,
AND GIVE HER A BICYCLE."
I saw nothing more of mother or Olive for some hours. Father came home early, and they were busy speeding his departure to catch a train at Liverpool Street, for he wanted to go to his sister in her trouble without delay. The children, Dora, Ethel, and Fred, came to visit me when they returned from their walk, and lingered in the room longer than I desired their company. It seemed to gratify them to see me lying in bed at that unusual hour. I do not think they believed much in my illness.
They were disposed to discuss Uncle George's death from every point of view. Fred particularly wanted to know whether uncle had made a will, and if I knew who would have his horses and cattle and the dogs, of which my young brother was particularly fond. He leaned his whole weight on the footboard of my bed, and swung to and fro as he asked those questions, thus inflicting the utmost torture on my shattered nerves. I was summoning what little firmness I yet retained in order to insist on their leaving me at once, when, to my relief, father appeared and sent them away.
It was like father that in the bustle of departure, he found leisure to come and sit beside me for a few minutes and express his tender sympathy.