Some minutes passed in silence, Norman lying still, excepting a nervous trembling that agitated his whole frame.

Again was heard the strange tread, doors opening and shutting, and suppressed voices, and he turned his face upwards, and listened with his hand pressed to his forehead, as if to keep himself still enough to listen.
"Oh! what is the matter?
What is it ?" cried Ethel, startled and recalled to the sense of what was passing.
"Oh, Norman!" Then springing up, with a sudden thought, "Mr.Ward! Oh! is he there ?" "Yes," said Norman, in a low hopeless tone, "he was at the place.

He said it--" "What ?" Again Norman's face was out of sight.
"Mamma ?" Ethel's understanding perceived, but her mind refused to grasp the extent of the calamity.

There was no answer, save a convulsive squeezing of her hand.
Fresh sounds below recalled her to speech and action.
"Where is she?
What are they doing for her?
What--" "There's nothing to be done.

She--when they lifted her up, she was--" "Dead ?" "Dead." The boy lay with his face hidden, the girl sat by him on the floor, too much crushed for even the sensations belonging to grief, neither moving nor looking.