So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor’s to rest, and possibly to dine.  The post in those times, came in at all hours of the morning:  and Doctor Trevor’s letters had not arrived until after his departure on his morning round.  Miss Galindo was sitting down to dinner with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the Doctor came in.  He was flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as soon as he decently could.  Then (rather feeling Miss Galindo’s presence an advantage, both as a present restraint on the violence of his wife’s grief, and as a consoler when he was absent on his afternoon round), he told Mrs. Trevor of her brother’s death.  He had been taken ill on circuit, and had hurried back to his chambers in London only to die.  She cried terribly; but Doctor Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed that Miss Galindo cared much about it one way or another.  She helped him to soothe his wife, promised to stay with her all the afternoon instead of returning to Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while the Doctor went to attend the funeral.  When they heard of the old love-story between the dead man and Miss Galindo,—­brought up by mutual friends in Westmoreland, in the review which we are all inclined to take of the events of a man’s life when he comes to die,—­they tried to remember Miss Galindo’s speeches and ways of going on during this visit.  She was a little pale, a little silent; her eyes were sometimes swollen, and her nose red; but she was at an age when such appearances are generally attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather than to any more sentimental reason.  They felt towards her as towards an old friend, a kindly, useful, eccentric old maid.  She did not expect more, or wish them to remember that she might once have had other hopes, and more youthful feelings.  Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for staying with his wife, when he returned home from London (where the funeral had taken place).  He begged Miss Galindo to stay with them, when the children were gone to bed, and she was preparing to leave the husband and wife by themselves.  He told her and his wife many particulars—­then paused—­then went on—­“And Mark has left a child—­a little girl—­

“But he never was married!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.

“A little girl,” continued her husband, “whose mother, I conclude, is dead.  At any rate, the child was in possession of his chambers; she and an old nurse, who seemed to have the charge of everything, and has cheated poor Mark, I should fancy, not a little.”

“But the child!” asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breathless with astonishment.  “How do you know it is his?”

“The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of indignation at my doubting it.  I asked the little thing her name, and all I could get was ‘Bessy!’ and a cry of ‘Me wants papa!’ The nurse said the mother was dead, and she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had engaged her to take care of the little girl, calling it his child.  One or two of his lawyer friends, whom I met with at the funeral, told me they were aware of the existence of the child.”