The day was one of the loveliest October days he had ever seen. His drive was through twenty miles of the best corn land of Illinois. The black road was as dry as a board, and as level as only a prairie can be. The first effect of the beautiful day and pure air was invigorating. He enjoyed the drive through the street into the country road. Then the broad fields, the pleasant farm houses, the herds of horses and cattle, the long Osage hedges, the perpetual but always surprised rabbit at the road side, all these attracted and entertained him, and his ride was successful in driving away his blues. His customer seemed especially glad to see him; took him to his house to dinner; talked with him of important personal matters, and gave him a large order for goods. He turned back to the railroad feeling as happy as he had ever done; took out his order-book and figured up the amount of the bill and the profit, as was his custom, and then began to sing. Suddenly there came across him a wave of anxious worry, and all his thoughts flew back to the daughter's sore throat, and the funeral he saw last Sunday. He could not drive these away. They clung to him; they whispered to him; they unfolded themselves like a panorama, and on the canvas he saw Mary sick, then worse, and then dead! It was the longest twenty-mile ride that he had ever taken, and his old friend, the landlord, concluded from his face that Morgan had met with bad luck in sales that day. He had a night run to Decatur and determined that he would telegraph to the house, and quiet these nervous apprehensions that were so cruel, though probably so absurd. It would cost but little, he reasoned, and though foolish, it was wiser than to continue to be torn by doubts. So before going to bed he gave the operator a half rate message, for morning delivery, as follows: To Manning, Morgan & Co., Chicago, Ill.: Is my wife or daughter sick? Answer, care Gilsey. C. MORGAN. He felt easier having done this, and passed a better night than the previous one, although there was in all his sleeping and waking thoughts an under current of solicitude over impending danger to Mary. With an attempt not to be anxious, yet terribly apprehensive at heart, he tore open the telegram that reached him about 9 o'clock: To C. Morgan, care Gilsey & Co., Decatur: Come home first train. MANNING. Good God, what was this! Were his forebodings indeed true? If so he was all the more totally unprepared for the truth. His constant comfort had been that his fears had not the slightest foundation to rest upon, and the more they crowded upon him the surer he had been that they were flimsier than dreams. But here staring him in the face were those four ominous words: “Come home first train.”