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," said the younger lady. "I am Mrs. Hitchcock." "Your son--" said the elder lady. "Take me to him at once, I pray you! Let me see him! I am his mother! Who shall keep me from him?" "Mother," said Barton, stepping up and placing his hands about her, "don't you feel it? Henry is dead. I knew it ere we stepped in." "Dead! who says he is dead? He is not dead!" "Tell her," said Barton; "she is heroic: let her know the worst." "Take me to him!" she said, as they remained silent. Up the stairs, in a dimly-lighted room, past two or three young men, and a kind neighbor or two, they conducted her; and there, composed as if in slumber, with his grand head thrown back, and his fine strong face fully upward, she found her third-born, growing chill in death. She sprang forward--arrested herself when within a step of him, and gazed. The light passed from her own eye, and the warmth from her face; a spasm shook her, and nothing more. She did not shriek; she did not faint; she made no outcry,--scarcely a visible sign; but steadily and almost stonily she gazed on her dead, until the idea of the awful change came fully to her. The chill passed from her face and manner; and seating herself on the bed,--"You won't mind me, ladies. You can do no more for him. Leave him to me for a little;" and she bent over and kissed his pallid lips, and laid her face tenderly to his, and lifted with her thin fingers the damp masses of his hair, brown and splendid, like Bart's, but darker, and without the wave.