Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"But——"

"Go out and leave me," he repeated, with anger little fitted to his position. And the woman was speeding from the room, when he caught at the curtain and recalled her.

"Are they not come?"

"Not yet, sir. But, with this heavy fall, it's not to be wondered at. The highways must be almost impassable. With good roads they might have been here hours ago."

She went out. He lay back on his pillow: his eyes wide open, but wearing the same dreamy look. You may be wondering who he is; though you probably guess, for you have heard of him once before as Mr. Cooper, the uncle who discarded Edgar Halliburton.

I must give you a few words of retrospect. Richard Cooper was the eldest of three children; the others were a brother and a sister: Richard, Alfred, and Helen. Alfred and Helen both married; Richard never did marry. It was somewhat singular that the brother and sister should both die, each leaving an orphan; and that the orphans should find a home in the house of their Uncle Richard. Julia Cooper, the brother's orphan, was the first to come to it, a long time before Edgar Halliburton came. Helen had married the Rev. William Halliburton, and she died at his rectory in Devonshire—sending that earnest prayer to her brother Richard which you have just heard him utter. A little while, and her husband, the rector, also died; and then it was that Edgar went up to his Uncle Richard's. Fortunate for these two orphan children, it appeared to be, that their uncle had not married and could give them a good home.

A good home he did give them. Julia left it first to become the wife of Anthony Dare, a solicitor in large practice in a distant city. She married him very soon after her cousin Edgar came to his uncle's. And it was after the marriage of Julia that Edgar was discarded and turned adrift. Years, many years, had gone by since then; and here lay Richard Cooper, stricken for death and repenting of the harshness, which he had not repented of or sought to atone for all through those long years. Ah, my friends! whatsoever may lie upon our consciences, however we may have contrived to ignore it during our busy lives, be assured that it will find us out on our death-bed!

Richard Cooper lay back on his pillow, his eyes wide open with their inward tribulation. "Who knows but there would be time yet?" he suddenly murmured. And the thought appeared to rouse his mind and flush his cheek, and he lifted his hand and grasped the bell-rope, ringing it so loudly as to bring two servants to the room.

"Go up, one of you, to Lawyer Weston's," he uttered. "Bring him back with you. Tell him I want to alter my will, and that there may yet be time. Don't send—one of you go," he repeated in tones of agonising entreaty. "Bring him; bring him back with you!"

As the echo of his voice died away there came a loud summons at the street door, as of a hasty arrival. "Sir," cried one of the maids, "they're come at last! I thought I heard a carriage drawing up in the snow."