daughter?"

"There's a little coffee left, but the bacon is quite cold."

These were the exclamations that greeted a tall bright girl, as she
entered the breakfast room one morning.

"I am very sorry, papa. I really meant to be down in time, but I suppose
I must have gone to sleep again after I was called." And being really
vexed with herself for having so soon broken her good resolutions,
formed for the hundredth time the day before, Ella Hastings accepted the
cold bacon meekly, and even turned a deaf ear to the withering sarcasms
of her two schoolboy brothers, who were leisurely strapping together
their books, and delaying their departure till the last moment.

"There is the postman coming up the garden; run and get the letters,
Hughie."

A solemn-looking boy of six years old climbed down from his chair, in
obedience to his father's request, and soon came back with a handful of
letters, and settled himself patiently by his father's side to wait for
the empty envelopes, which formed his share of the morning's
correspondence.

An exclamation of surprise from Mr. Hastings caused his wife to look up
inquiringly from the letter she had just opened, and he handed her
silently a telegram which had been forwarded, with other papers, from
his office, where it had evidently been delivered late the previous
evening. Kate, the eldest daughter, leaning over her mother's shoulder,
read aloud the short notice:--