s you, Richard?" demanded his father, in the tones of sympathy
and kindness.

"Nothing particular; only I don't feel just right," replied the young
midnight marauder, terribly alarmed as he thought of the probable
consequences of this visitation.

"Well, open the door, and let me see what I can do for you," added his
father.

"I don't want any thing done. I shall be well enough in the morning."

"You had better open the door, Richard; I want to see you about the
robbers."

"I can't; I am in bed."

"Don't get up then," said Mr. Grant, more anxious than at first for the
health of his son. "I have a key that will open the door."

These words struck terror to the soul of the guilty youth, and he
sprang out of bed with all the haste he could command. One terror
filled his mind--that his father might see his bleeding, lacerated
limbs; and he did, what guilty persons often do, the stupidest thing of
which the circumstances would admit. He had blown out the light when he
heard them coming, and now in the darkness he pulled on his pants,
forgetting that the bed clothes would as effectually hide his injured
members as the garment.

He had hardly clothed himself in this partial manner before his father
succeeded in opening the door. By the aid of the light which uncle Obed
carried, the head and front of the melon expedition was revealed to the
visitors, standing in the middle of the room, half clothed and wholly
scared.

"Why, Richard! What ails you? Where have you been?" demanded Mr. Grant,
as he and the others gazed with astonishment at the sorry figure which
the male heir of Woodville presented.

If Richard had attempted to dress himself in the light, he would have
rejected the muddy pants he now wore, and consigned them to the deepest
depths of the clothes-press. He had rolled in the moist earth of the
melon patch, while under the discipline of Mr. Batterman, till his
clothes were plastered with mud. His face was begrimed with the rich
black mould of the garden, through which the tears of anger and
resentment he had shed, under the influence of their natural gravity,
had furrowed passages down his checks.

In the simple but eloquent language of Mrs. Green, the housekeeper of
Woodville, who had followed the party up stairs, to offer her services
in the capacity of nurse, Richard was "a sight to behold." He had
retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before
nine o'clock, looking like a decent