and it was there the master of the house was usually to be found, at this
time of day, with Evelyn, his only child, close at his side.

They were there now, seated at a table covered with books and papers, he
busied in drawing plans for a building, she equally so with her lessons.

But presently, at the sound of a deep sigh from her father, she glanced
hastily up at him.

He had dropped his pencil and was leaning back against the cushions of
his easy-chair, with a face so wan and weary that she started up in
alarm, and springing to his side, exclaimed, "Dear papa, I am sure you
are not well! Do stop working, and lie down on the sofa. And won't you
let me tell Patrick to go for the doctor when he has taken mamma to
Riverside?"

"Yes, Evelyn, I think you may," he answered in low feeble tones, and with
a sad sort of smile, gently pressing the hand she had laid in his, as he
spoke. "It will do no harm for me to see Dr. Taylor, even should it do no
good."

"What is that? send for the doctor? Are you ill, Eric?" asked a lady who
had entered the room just in time to catch his last sentence.

"I am feeling unusually languid, Laura," he replied; "yet not much more
so than I did yesterday. Perhaps it is only the heat."

"The heat!" she echoed; "why, it is a delightful day! warm, to be sure,
but not oppressively so."