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 with all the tenderness that was in him. Then he rose and walked quietly out of the room.

Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles and the doctor were waiting in the hall. Edward managed to say:

"She wants her father and mother." And then his power of speech failed him. He went downstairs and paced from the old grandfather clock in the hall to the pot of ferns in the bay window of the drawing-room and back again—to and fro—until he knew by a sound of sobbing that she had died.

A very pale and sick-looking Edward joined his father and his Dear Mother at breakfast.

"When did you get home, Edward?" asked Dear Mother in the old peremptory voice.

"About ten minutes ago," said Edward, "and I'd rather not be scolded about it. Alice is dead."

"That lovely child?" exclaimed Mr. Eaton. "How terrible!"

Dear Mother was shocked too—more than she would have cared to confess, but she was determined to have her say and point a moral.

"That is what comes to those," she said, "who are without faith in their divine Maker."

"That is what comes to everybody sooner or later," said Edward sharply. "Cripples and idiots are sometimes born into the most pious families."