Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/219

Rh they lived, and saw the house shut up; they stopped, and the door was opened by a stranger, though their own servant stood in the passage.

"How is my mother?" asked she, in a voice scarcely audible. The old man only shook his head, he could not find words to answer. Fanny had hardly power to reach her mother's apartment, she leant for a moment against the wall, before she entered. Bewildered as she was by the shock with which death and sorrow had come upon her, she could not but notice another strange man passing along the passage. The desire of avoiding him gave her courage to enter the room. Dark as it was, she could see her mother laid on the sofa, and her little sister seated on a stool beside. On her entrance, the child looked up with a frightened air, but, instantly recognising her, ran and clasped her round the neck, and Fanny felt her face wet with her tears: alas! the poor little creature had no other means of expression, for she was deaf and dumb. Fanny took her up in her arms, and