descending from Judge Pike's carriage was sufficiently startling, but
when she saw Mamie Pike take Respectability from his master's arms and
carry him tenderly indoors, while Joe and Ariel occupied themselves
with Mr. Arp, the good lady sprang to her feet as if she had been
stung, regardlessly sending her work-basket and its contents scattering
over the floor, and ran down the stairs three steps at a time.

At the front door she met her husband, entering for his dinner, and she
leaped at him. Had he seen? What was it? What had happened?

Mr. Louden rubbed his chin-beard, indulging himself in a pause which
was like to prove fatal to his companion, finally vouchsafing the
information that the doctor's buggy was just turning the corner; Eskew
Arp had suffered a "stroke," it was said, and, in Louden's opinion, was
a mighty sick man. His spouse replied in no uncertain terms that she
had seen quite that much for herself, urging him to continue, which he
did with a deliberation that caused her to recall their wedding-day
with a gust of passionate self-reproach. Presently he managed to
interrupt, reminding her that her dining-room windows commanded as
comprehensive a view of the next house as did the front steps, and
after a time her housewifely duty so far prevailed over her indignation
at the man's unwholesome stolidity that she followed him down the hall
to preside over the meal, not, however, to partake largely of it
herself.

Mr. Louden had no information of Eugene's mishap, nor had Mrs. Louden
any suspicion that all was not well with the young man, and, hearing
him enter the front door, she called to him that his dinner was
waiting. Eugene, however, made no reply and went up-stairs to his own
apartment without coming into the dining-room.

A small crowd, neighboring children, servants, and negroes, had
gathered about Ariel's gate, and Mrs. Louden watched the working-men
disperse this assembly, gather up their tools, and depart; then Mamie
came out of the house, and, bowing sadly to three old men who were
entering the gate as she left it, stepped into her carriage and drove
away. The new-comers, Colonel Flitcroft, Squire Buckalew, and Peter
Bradbury, glanced at the doctor's buggy, shook their heads at one
another, and slowly went up to the porch, where Joe met them. Mrs.
Louden uttered a sharp exclamation, for the Colonel shook hands with
her stepson.

Perhaps Flitcroft himself was surprised; he had offered hi