‘Your servant told us.’

’What are we to do?  Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful!  Poor papa!  Poor papa!  When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too.’

‘Has your mother been told?’

’Oh yes.  She knows.  No one tried to conceal anything for a moment.  It was better that it should be so;—­better at last.  But we have no friends who would be considerate enough to try to save us from sorrow.  But I think it was better.  Mamma is very bad.  She is always nervous and timid.  Of course this has nearly killed her.  What ought we to do?  It is Mr Longestaffe’s house, and we were to have left...