On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter, addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and the Edinburgh postmark.

A bowl of bouillon and a glass of wine awakened in one corner of my brain (where all the rest was in mourning, the blinds down as for a funeral) a faint stir of curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the while what I had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch-making document.
"DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of announcing to you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr.Alexander Loudon, on the 17th ult.

On Sunday the 13th, he went to church as usual in the forenoon, and stopped on his way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of our seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend.

The same evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman appeared to have no illusion as to his own state.

He repeatedly assured me it was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he once added with characteristic asperity.