Mrs. Darling closed her eyes again, and her daughter took up the unopened newspaper, when another young lady, very much resembling the first, and looking quite as old, came in. She gave a slight shiver as she passed the window, and began to stir the fire.
"What a miserable day it is! I wish we could put off our journey."
"Where's the use of wishing that, Margaret?" said Miss Darling. "But it is miserable. Has Charlotte found the cover of her desk?"
"I don't know. I don't suppose Charlotte has looked for it. I heard her tell Prance that none of her things must be forgotten."
"True. When did Charlotte ever trouble herself to look for anything?" was Mary Anne Darling's response; but she spoke it more in soliloquy than as a reply.
Margaret Darling--she was one year younger than her sister--drew her chair in front of the fire, and put her feet upon the fender.
"Is that the newspaper? Is there any news, Mary Anne?"
"Yes, there's news," was the quiet answer: but Miss Darling's manner was always quiet. "A baby is born at the Hall."
"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, starting up as she caught the words, and all her lethargy was gone. "Is the baby born, Mary Anne?"
For answer, Miss Darling read out the words: "On the 10th inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir."