the carriage and its owner; one of them
remained in the house while the other went for a doctor.

Mrs. Soher regained consciousness, and as her senses returned to
her, she cried bitterly: "My poor son, my dear son."

At this stage, Mr. Soher came home. He was surprised to find his
neighbour seated near the fire in the kitchen. His surprise was
changed into anguish, when the neighbour, in a few words, informed
him of Tom's sad fate.

Mr. Soher was horrified. With a blanched face and tottering steps he
ascended the stairs and entered the room in which lay his wife. Upon
seeing him, his wife uttered heart-rending cries: "Oh, Thomas, what
are we going to do; our only son." Her sobs choked her.

Her husband did not say a word. He turned on his heels, closed the
door after him, and entered the room in which lay his son's corpse.

As he glanced at those dilated eyes, a chill ran through his frame.
"Great God; is it possible?" he exclaimed, raising his eyes to
heaven; "my son, my son."

He paced up and down the room with feverish steps, a prey to the
most poignant grief. His conscience upbraided him loudly. It said:

"Behold your son whose education you have overlooked; behold him
whom you have left to grow in vice, without an effort worth the name
to save him from the ruinous bent of his bad passions."

"I know it; 'tis all my fault," exclaimed the grief and
conscience-stricken man. "I have not done half of what I might have
done for him.

"Animated by a false pride, I desired to shine among my
fellow-worshippers, and have been continually away from home,
neglecting my duty there, to satisfy my ambition. Miserable man that
I am."

He cast his eyes towards the lifeless body of which the eyes met his
and seemed to reproach him for having shirked his duty.

"Oh, God! wilt thou ever forgive me?" he cried in wild despair;
"what can I do to atone? If one half, if a tenth part of the energy
which I have displayed elsewhere had been employed in bringing up my
son as I ought to have done, this would not be."

He continued thus to soliloquize, now and then stopping abruptly in
his nervous walk to gaze upon those reproachful eyes, then resuming
his wanderings, blaming himself continually.

He was in the midst of his peregrinations when his daughter entered
the room.

"Father," she said, "a woman who is downstairs wishes to speak with
you."

The troubled man did not answer. What was this to him; what was all
the world