CHAPTER XI. 

AUNT CATHARINE'S HOME. 

The lady sleeps--O may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This bed being changed for one more holy, This room for one more melancholy, Some tomb, that oft hath flung its black And wing-like panels fluttering back, Triumphant o'er the fluttering palls Of her grand family funerals. E. A. POE. 

The summer was nearly over, when, one morning at breakfast, Louis surprised his father by a sound, half consternation, half amusement, and handed him a note, containing these words:-- 

'DEAR F.,--There were three of us last night; there are five this morning. Isabel and the twins are doing well. Heaven knows what is to become of us! 

'Yours, J. F.' 

'What would you have?' said Lord Ormersfield, calmly. 'The poorer people are, the more children they have!' 

He went on with his own letters, while Louis laughed at the enunciation of this inverse ratio; and then took up the note again, to wonder at the tone of anxiety and distress, so unlike James. He went to call on Lady Conway, and was better satisfied to find that James had written in a lively strain to her, as if proud of his little daughters, and resolved not to be pitied. Of this he was in no danger from his sisters-in-law, who looked upon twin-girls as the only blessing needed to complete Isabel's felicity, had devised three dozen names for them, and longed to be invited to Northwold to see them. 
what?
This bed being changed for one more holy,