id June came the blow. George brought up from the post-office, one
evening, the following letter:

"PAINESVILLE, June 18, 1837. BARTON RIDGELEY, ESQ.:

"_Dear Sir_,--I write at the request of my sister, Mrs. Hitchcock. Your
brother is very ill. Wanders in his mind, and we are uneasy about
him. He has been sick about a week. Mr. Hitchcock is absent at court.
Sincerely yours,

Edward Marshall."

"Henry is ill," said Barton, very quietly, after reading it. "This
letter is from Mrs. Hitchcock. He has been poorly for a week. I think
I had better go to him."

"He did not write himself, it seems," said his mother.

"He probably doesn't regard himself as very sick, and did not want
us sent for," said Bart, "and they may have written without his
knowledge. I will take Arab, and ride in the cool of the night."

"You are alarmed, Barton, and don't tell me all. Read me the letter."
And he read it. "I will go with you, Barton," very quietly, but
decidedly.

"How can you go, mother?"

"As you do," firmly.

"You cannot ride thirty miles on horseback, mother, even if we had a
horse you could ride at all."

"I shall go with you," was her only answer.

An hour later, with a horse and light buggy, procured from a neighbor,
they drove out into the warm, sweet June night. At Chardon, they
paused for half an hour, to breathe the horse, and went on. Bart was
a good horseman, from loving and knowing horses, and drove with skill
and judgment. They talked little on the road, and at about two in the
morning they drove up to the old American House in Painesville, and,
with his mother on his arm, Barton started out on River Street, to the
residence of Mr. Hitchcock.

How silent the streets! and how ghostly the white houses stood, in the
stillness of the night! and how like a dream it all seemed! They had
no difficulty in finding the house, with its ominous lights, that had
all night long burned out dim into the darkness.

The door was open, and the bell brought a sweet, matronly woman to
receive them.

"We are Henry Ridgeley's mother and brother," said Barton. "Is he
still alive?"

The question indicated his utter hopelessness of his brother's
condition.

"Come in this way, into the parlor," said the lady; and stepping out,
"Mother," she called, "Mr. Ridgeley's mother has come. Please step
this way."

A moment later, a tall, elderly lady, sad-faced as was her daughter,
and much agitated, entered the room.

"My mother,"