AT THE OLD MAN'S BEDSIDE.


When the word "murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's lips, his father
started as if a bullet had pierced his heart, and the hot blood surged
up into his face, as he said:

"Oh, my son, my son, that you should be the first to call me by a name
which even Hannah has never spoken, and she has known it all the time.
She saw me do the deed; she helped me bury it. Poor Hannah!"

"You!" and Burton turned fiercely upon his sister, who stood like a
block of marble and almost as colorless. "You helped. Then you were an
accessory to the crime, and never spoke, never told! No wonder your hair
turned white before its time!"

"Brother! brother!" Hannah cried, as she threw up her hands in an
anguish of entreaty. "You do not know, you cannot guess, or you would
never reproach me thus."

"But I do know that you kept silence, and that I, who thought myself so
honorable and high, am branded with disgrace, am the son of a--"

"Stay!" and the dying man gathered all his remaining strength for the
reproof. "You shall not call me by that name again. You shall not speak
thus to your sister, the noblest woman and the most faithful daughter
God ever gave to the world. I bound her by a solemn oath not to speak,
even had she wished to, which she did not, for I was her father; your
father, too, and I know that in some respects you are not worthy to
touch the hem of her garment. Say, Mr. Sanford," and he turned to the