"Did you send for Mrs. Bundle, ma'am, since you came down to dinner?"
he asked.
"Oh, dear no," said my wife.
"Cook was going upstairs, and met Missis Bundle a little way out of
her room," Bowles explained; "and Missis Bundle she says, 'Don't stop
me,' says she, 'Mrs. Dacre wants me,' she says, and on she goes; and
cook waits and waits in her room for her, and at last she comes down
to me, and she says--"
"But where _is_ Mrs. Bundle?" cried my father.
"That's circumstantially what nobody knows, sir," said Bowles with a
distracted air.
We all three rushed upstairs. Mrs. Bundle was not to be found. My
father was frantic; my wife with tears lamented that some chance word
of hers might have led the half-childish old lady to fancy that she
wanted her.
But a sudden conviction had seized upon me.
"You need not trouble yourself, my darling," said I; "you are not the
Mrs. Dacre Nurse Bundle went to seek."
I ran to my father's dressing-room. It was as I thought.
Below my mother's portrait, on the spot where years before she had
held me in her arms with tears, I, weeping also, held her now in
mine--quite dead.
THE END
* * * * *
The Queen's Treasures Series
_Small Crown 8vo.
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