It was soon decided that the party should break up the next day. The Wyllyses, with Mrs. Stanley and Mary Van Alstyne, were to return to Longbridge. Mrs. Creighton and Mr. Ellsworth were obliged to pay their long deferred visit to Nahant, the gentleman having some business of importance in the neighbourhood; but it was expected that they also should join the family at Wyllys-Roof as early as possible. Jane was to return to New York with her sister-in-law, Mrs. St. Leger, leaving Miss Emma Taylor flirting at Saratoga, under the charge of a fashionable chaperon; while Mr. Hopkins was still fishing at Lake George. CHAPTER XI. {XXXIV} "'Whence this delay?--Along the crowded street A funeral comes, and with unusual pomp.'" ROGERS. {Samuel Rogers (English poet, 1763-1855), "Italy: A Funeral" lines 1-2} IT is a common remark, that important events seldom occur singly; and they seem indeed often to follow each other with startling rapidity, like the sharpest flashes of lightning and the loudest peals of thunder from the dark clouds of a summer shower. On arriving in New York, the Wyllyses found that Tallman Taylor had been taken suddenly and dangerously ill, during the previous night, the consequence of a stroke of the sun; having exposed himself imprudently, by crossing the bay to Staten-Island for a dinner party, in an open boat, when the thermometer stood at 95 {degrees} in the shade. He was believed in imminent danger, and was too ill to recognize his wife when she arrived. Miss Wyllys and Elinor remained in town, at the urgent request of Jane, who was in great distress; while Mr. Wyllys returned home with Mrs. Stanley and Mary Van Alstyne. {Susan's father, James Fenimore Cooper, twice suffered from sunstroke, in 1823 and 1825, while sailing a small boat near New York City, and she later wrote of the attacks of delirium that followed} After twenty-four hours of high delirium, the physicians succeeded in subduing the worst symptoms; but the attack took the character of a bilious fever, and the patient's recovery was thought very doubtful from the first. Poor Jane sat listlessly in the sick-room, looking on and weeping, unheeded by her husband, who would allow no one but his mother to come near him, not even his wife or his sisters; he would not, indeed, permit his mother to leave his sight for a moment, his eyes following every movement of her's with the feverish restlessness of disease, and the helpless dependence of a child. Jane mourned and wept; Adeline had at least the merit of activity, and made herself useful as an assistant nurse, in preparing whatever was needed by her brother. These two young women, who had been so often together in brilliant scenes of gaiety, were now, for the first time, united under a roof of sorrow and suffering. "That lovely young creature is a perfect picture of helpless grief!" thought one of the physicians, as he looked at Jane.