“Oh! do, do let me alone! do leave me in quiet; for I am very, very unhappy!”

And hastily, and with great agitation, Agnes left the room.

Mr. Fairland, who was so much interested in a paragraph in the paper, which appeared to shock him exceedingly, that he had not heard the ill-natured remarks of his daughters, looked up just as Agnes rose from the table, and heard her agonized address.

With more sternness than usual, he asked his daughters what they had been saying to Agnes, and on hearing their account of the conversation, he exclaimed: 

“Poor Agnes! you will see in this paper girls something that will shock you, and will perhaps inspire you with a little sympathy for one whom it seems to be your delight to torment.  You may perhaps now guess who it was that Agnes met in the grove last night.”

The Misses Fairland were really shocked to read the account of the murder, and to read the name of Lewis Elwyn as the murderer; and something like remorse for a moment visited their minds, that they had added to the sufferings of the already burdened heart of Agnes.

“Poor fellow! poor young man!” exclaimed Mr. Fairland; “such a handsome fellow as he was, and such a sweet singer too! this seems to have been done in a sudden passion; and not without provocation too.  But it is an awful thing!  Poor Agnes! she must not attempt to teach the children while she is so distressed; and I do desire girls, that you will have the decency, if you have not the feeling, to leave her entirely undisturbed.”

Days passed on and nothing was heard of the fugitive.  Oh, what days of restless and painful suspense to Agnes!  Had she not had constant and unusual occupation for her time, it seemed to her that she could not keep her reason.  But poor Tiney had grown suddenly and alarmingly worse, and the physician said a very days at most would terminate her sufferings.  With all the distressing thoughts which crowded upon her, Agnes remained by the bed-side of the little sufferer, endeavoring to soothe and cheer her descent to the dark valley.

Mrs. Fairland, who though indolent and indifferent in many things with regard to her children, was not altogether without natural affection, passed much of her time, during the last two or three days of Tiney’s life, in her room, sitting quietly near the head of the bed.  Mr. Fairland, who seemed more overcome even than Agnes expected, hardly ever left the bed-side.  The older sisters looked in occasionally for a few moments, but their “nerves” (always ready as an excuse with people destitute of feeling) would not allow their staying for more than five minutes at a time, in the room of the sick child.  The younger children wandered restlessly about the house, their little hearts oppressed by the first approach of death among their number; sometimes coming in quietly to look at the dying sister, and then wandering off again.