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 XXXVI

THE HONORABLE SECRETARY

On the following morning Northcote was late for breakfast. When the old charwoman shook his curtains at a quarter to eight, a sleepy voice murmured: "I may be a bit late. I will cook the bacon myself and make the tea. Lay a knife and fork for two and don't stay."

It was between ten and eleven o'clock by the time he had completed his toilet. And it befell that at that hour the kettle was singing on the fire, and he himself was kneeling before it, toasting pieces of bacon upon a fork, when there came a knock on the door of his room.

"Come in," he called cheerfully.

He expected to see an attorney's clerk with further business for his attention.

Instead, two persons entered whose appearance caused him to drop the fork and the bacon among the ashes.

A moment ensued in which he had to fight with all his resolution to regain his self-possession. The first to enter the room was his mother, and immediately behind her was the young girl whom he was under a pledge to marry.

Mrs. Northcote was a tall, strong woman, past fifty, with assured movements and a resolute-looking face. It was large and rather square. Her cheeks were red with country life; her hair had