CHAPTER IV.

THE BIDDLES, AUNT AND COUSINS.

HE Biddles family, all that were left

THE

of it, were at tea.

The damask table-cloth was snowy white, the glass and silver shone and sparkled, the chandelier was ablaze, and bright tongues of flame leaped through the bars of the glowing grate and reflected themselves cheerily in the polished steel fender.

But the place at the head of the table was empty. It was enough, and more than enough, to blot the dazzle around them into utter darkness, and to turn the warmth of the dancing fire-light into a deadly chill.

Around the table were gathered the mother and her two daughters, Mrs. Down and Becky, while the butler stood behind his mistress's chair, duly mindful of any one's needs.

The thoughts of each were with that cold, still form, that but a few hours before had been carried out of the house and laid away forever from their sight in its last earthly resting-place. For the funeral was over. The indulgent father, the kind husband, the generous brother, had passed away like a dream. Instead of his living presence, a memory remained to them- nothing more.

Erect and tearless, Mrs. Biddles sat in her widow's weeds, facing the master's "vacant chair." Caroline at her right, who inherited her mother's haughty stiffness, was also tearless and composed. But Gertrude, sweet-faced little Gerty, the father's pet, her blue eyes were misty, and her small, rosy mouth quivering still.

As for Mrs. Down, she had cried so much that she could cry no more, and, greatly to Mrs. Biddles's relief, had lapsed into a partial numbness, which allowed of her speaking just above a whisper. She gasped too, from time to time. This was all she was capable of.

Nobody partook very heartily of the delicate viands before them.

"John," said Mrs. Biddles, when Mrs. Down refused a second cup of tea and left her toast untasted, "you may go. I will ring when I want you."

The butler, to whom this was addressed, bowed and left the room.

Then Mrs. Biddles turned to her dead husband's sister. "I know it is early to talk of business," she said; "but your going away in the morning leaves me no other chance."

Mrs. Down* looked at Becky imploringly.

"It will be best to be alone," continued Mrs. Biddles. "We will wait till the children are gone."

"I had rather Becky would stay," said Mrs. Down, quite alarmed. "I am so dull. I don't know anything about business. will understand it, though.”

She

"Very well," assented Mrs. Biddles, shortly, motioning to her daughters, who walked away together.

After shutting the door behind them, the two girls went slowly up the stairs. Gertrude nestled up to her sister in a halffrightened kind of way, and put her arm about her.

"Carry," said she, her eyes mistier than ever, "do you think she looks like papa?" "Who?"

Don't you know

"Why, Judge Peters! he saw them at the depot yesterday, and got them a carriage? And to-day I heard him say to Becky, 'My dear, you are the perfect image of your uncle.""

"I don't think so," said Caroline. "That awkward, common country girl is no more like our dear, handsome papa than-than nothing at all," and with the tremble in her voice the tears came into her eyes.

"Poor, darling pa," sobbed Gerty, clasping her sister closer.

Meanwhile, down in the dining-room their mother was talking business.

She had drawn her chair to the fire, and was resting her feet on the fender. But the blaze brought no color to her cheek, no light to her eyes. She sat like a frozen statue, and her voice was cold as ice.

"As I wrote you in the letter," she said, "you have no claim upon us. There will be no trouble about the division of the property. One third, by law, goes to me, and there remains a third for each of the children. We shall all have equal shares.”

The lady paused and looked straight at Mrs. Down, as if to ask, "Have you anything to say to this?”

But she, poor woman, only wilted the more under Mrs. Biddles's steady stare, and huddled back still farther into her chair.

The icy voice went on: "I suppose you have had expectations. Probably, if there had been a will, some provision would have been made for you. But all that is at an end now. If you had been a prudent woman, you would have laid by a part of the money that has been so lavishly supplied