"Ivy Fanning, the long missing girl, supposed to be dead—dying now at the Reindeer?"
"Yes, sir—yes, sir! And if you don't make haste and tell my ole missis she'll be dead before her mudder can get to her," sobbed the faithful boy.
"Sit down here and wait," said Mr. Lytton, who now understood the emergency.
And, leaving the boy seated in the hall, he went into the drawing-room and told Emma the surprising news that Ivy Fanning, the long-lost, erring daughter of Frederick and Katharine Fanning, and the unworthy cousin of Emma Cavendish—Ivy Fanning, whose faults had caused so much misery to all connected with her—Ivy Fanning, supposed to be dead long ago, was now lying at the point of death at the Reindeer Hotel, and begging to see her poor, wronged mother!
"What a terrible thing to tell Aunt Katharine, when we rouse her up at the dead of night!" exclaimed Emma, with a shudder.
"And yet, my dear one, it is your duty to do that very terrible thing. Go bravely and do it, my love, while I go and order the most comfortable carriage in the stable to convey the poor lady to Wendover," said Alden Lytton, encouragingly.
Emma went to Mrs. Fanning's room and waked her up, telling her at first, very gently, that she was wanted.
The poor woman, jumping to the conclusion that some one of the household servants was ill and in need of her ministrations, got up at once and inquired who it was.
"It is a friend of yours who is ill at the Reindeer Hotel at Wendover, and desires to see you," said Emma, beginning gently to break to the poor mother the news that it was her dying daughter who had sent for her.
"Friend? I am sure I have no friend who is near enough to send for me, at dead of night, to come sixteen miles to see him, or her, as the case may be," said the widow, looking very much perplexed, as she hastened to put on her clothes.