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 way as the men descended; but the one who so long had been Aram's solitary domestic, and who from her deafness was still benighted and uncomprehending as to the causes of his seizure, though from that very reason her alarm was the greater and more acute,—she—impatiently thrusting away the officers, and mumbling some unintelligible anathema as she did so, flung herself at the feet of a master, whose quiet habits and constant kindness had endeared him to her humble and faithful heart, and exclaimed:

"What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you? O Master, God bless you! God shield you! I shall never see you, who was my only friend, who was every one's friend, any more!"

Aram drew himself from her, and said with a quivering lip to Rowland Lester:

"If her fears are true,—if—if I never more return hither, see that her old age does not starve—does not want."

Lester could not speak for sobbing, but the