And Elsie sat to employ his absence in writing a few lines to her mother, which she inclosed and directed to Mr. Wilson, the young Methodist minister.
She had scarcely concluded when supper, consisting of fine coffee and rich cream, buckwheat cakes, fresh butter, and venison steaks with currant jelly, was brought in and neatly arranged upon the table.
Magnus came in, and Elsie, with a blush and a smile, took her seat at the head of the board. This was the first time she had “done the honors of the table,” and her half-womanly, half-childly heart was pleased at the novelty of her position.
As for Magnus, he was as gravely comfortable as if he had been used to his vis-a-vis all his life.
Very early the next morning the mules were fed and watered and put to the wagon, and a substantial breakfast prepared for our travelers.
But when Magnus went to the bar to pay his bill, the barkeeper, with the slow nonchalance of a country postmaster, handed him a letter, which he said had been brought by the Huttontown post-boy late the night previous. Magnus took the letter. It was superscribed in the handwriting of Mr. Wilson. He turned it to break it open, and found, to his dismay, that the seal was black. He tore it open. It was short, even abrupt in its annunciation.
“Huttontown, December 18, 18—.
“Dr. Hardcastle.
“My Dear Friend: I keep the post-boy waiting while I write to announce the painful intelligence of the death of Mrs. Garnet. She expired suddenly about two o’clock this morning—three hours before you left Huttontown, although we did not receive the sad news of her decease until seven o’clock. The funeral is fixed for to-morrow afternoon at four. Return immediately, if you would be present to pay the last respects to the memory of the sainted dead. May Heaven grant that this season of awful and mutual bereavement may be sanctified to the hearts and souls of the father and daughter, of the father-in-law and the son-in-law, and that you may be all reconciled—each to the other, and all to God—is the prayer of
“Your brother in Christian love,