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A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
page 79 of 338 (23%)
pyrotechnics, in which she displayed Phineas to his wife in a number
of blazing lifelike portraits, took her departure. It was not the
first time she had faced the alternative of paying the rent, or seeing
her only relative turned into the street, nor was it the first time
that, after giving innumerable pieces of her mind to Maria, she had
followed them up with the rent.

All the way home she discussed the matter audibly with herself, and
was still muttering darkly when she reached the Queeringtons'. So
absorbed was she in her own wrongs that she did not notice that the
front door stood open, and figures were hurrying about in the hall.

As she let herself into the side door, a white-faced young girl, with
her hair brushed straight back into a long braid, rushed through the
pantry.

"What's the matter, Miss Hattie?"

The girl steadied herself by the banister. "It's father!" she said
with chattering teeth. "There's been an awful accident just below the
Junction. They can't even bring him home. They are taking him to a
place out there, a Colonel Carsey's. Colonel Carsey was killed. He was
sitting right by father. Oh! Myrtella, I'm so afraid father's going to
die!"

Myrtella standing helplessly before the terror-stricken girl, could
find no words of sympathy. In fact she appeared even more formidable
and bristling than usual.

"Well, he ain't dead yet," she said shortly, "and any how, there ain't
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