was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he was shattered in health and unhappy in mind.
A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When the footman dismounted from the box and opened the door the gentleman who was the father of the Large Family got out first. After him there descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the
Miss Amelia stammered again. “A BLACK one?”
“She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?”
Miss Amelia began to turn pale.
“No—ye-es!” she said. “But it is too short for her. She has only the old black velvet, and she has outgrown it.”
“Go and tell her to take off that preposterous