“We are now without father:  we shall soon be without home and brother,” she murmured,

At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never come singly,” and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the lip.  St. John passed the window reading a letter.  He entered.

“Our uncle John is dead,” said he.

Both the sisters seemed struck:  not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.

“Dead?” repeated Diana.

“Yes.”

She riveted a searching gaze on her brother’s face.  “And what then?” she demanded, in a low voice.

“What then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature.  “What then?  Why —­ nothing.  Read.”

He threw the letter into her lap.  She glanced over it, and handed it to Mary.  Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother.  All three looked at each other, and all three smiled —­ a dreary, pensive smile enough.

“Amen!  We can yet live,” said Diana at last.

“At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked Mary.

“Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been,” said Mr. Rivers, “and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is.”

He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.

For some minutes no one spoke.  Diana then turned to me.

“Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him.  He was my mother’s brother.  My father and he quarrelled long ago.  It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him.  Mutual recrimination passed between them:  they parted in anger, and were never reconciled.  My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings:  it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds.  He was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we.  My father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings.  He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased:  and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news.  Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do.”

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters.  The next day I left Marsh End for Morton.  The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B-.  In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage:  and so the old grange was abandoned.