Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 725, November 17, 1877

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Various. Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 725, November 17, 1877

EXPERIENCES OF A KNOCKER-UP

THE ADMIRAL'S SECOND WIFE

THE MAFIA AND CAMORRA

NEARLY WRECKED

CHANGE-RINGING

CHRISTMAS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS

THE MISTLETOE

A LOCAL INSTANCE OF CANINE ATTACHMENT

MONUMENT AND TURF

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Five wretched days pass, and Katie hardly knows how they go, for she counts time only by the arrival of the mail-bag. Yet no letter has come from Sir Herbert, and she is almost distracted. Has he really set her free? cast her off? And will he never again come, or send, or speak?

The great house is growing silent and gloomy beyond measure. Though the daily routine of work and attendance goes on as usual, there is a change, and Katie sees it. Servants are beginning to talk; a rumour spreads among them that the Admiral is to be superseded, and that the establishment in Government House will soon be broken up. Perhaps they have gleaned this from the newspapers, which are making very free with Sir Herbert's name just now. They jest at his clumsiness, his mismanagement, and his blunder; they wonder whether he has fallen into dotage. They marvel how a man in his sober senses could send such a miserable craft as the Leoni to sea in a storm. Indeed she would have become a total wreck had not the Leo while making for the Short Reefs discovered her far out of her course, tossing about on a cross sea, her rudder broken, her decks flooded with water, and her crew in a rampant state of disorder. The old ship was fast going to her doom, like a great blundering unmanageable sea-monster; when the Leo took her in tow and brought her into harbour.

.....

'Surely nothing has happened to the Admiral? Be calm, child, and tell me what all this means.'

'He went to London, father.'

.....