"Is not Helen Mowbray a charming creature!" said a gentleman who was seated next Miss Torrington, and who, being neither young, handsome, rich, nor noble, felt that he could wound no feelings by expressing his admiration of one young lady to another.
"I will tell you what she is," answered Rosalind warmly: "she is just as much better than every body else in the world, as her sister, there, is more beautiful."
"And you are...." said the middle-aged gentleman, fixing a pair of very intelligent eyes on her face,—"you are...."
But notwithstanding the look of curiosity with which Miss Torrington listened, the speaker suddenly stopped, for a bell was rung with that sort of sudden and continued vehemence which denotes haste and agitation in the hand that gives it movement.
"That is my father's bell!" said Charles in an accent of alarm; and starting up, he was out of the room in an instant.
Mrs. Mowbray immediately followed him, and for several minutes a sort of heavy silence seemed to have fallen on every individual present—not a word being uttered by any one, and the eyes of all fixing themselves on the face of Fanny, who kept her place as if spell-bound, but with a countenance that expressed a feeling approaching to terror.
"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed Rosalind abruptly. "Excuse us for a moment," she added, addressing those who still remained in the breakfast-room.—"Come with me, Fanny, and let us know the worst at once."
The two girls left the room together; and in a very few minutes afterwards a servant entered, the violent agitation of whose manner announced the news he brought before he spoke it.
"My master ... my poor master is dead!" were the words he uttered; and their effect upon a party assembled for an occasion of so much festivity, and who had so lately parted with their kind and happy host in perfect health, may be easily imagined.
One single word in reply to the eager chorus of inquiry told the manner of his death—