One afternoon, some days before the cause was to be tried, John received a hurried note from Mr. Wendell, who was at Ipswich on business; the note was dated the day before, and expressed some fears, which he had never allowed to appear before, as to the issue of the trial. “His hopes,” the note said, “still predominated, but he thought it would be best for John not to allow his mother to be buoyed up by them, but to endeavor to prepare her for the worst.” The student, with a heavy heart, left the office and went home to seek his mother. He felt relieved on finding she had lain down after dinner, and had at length fallen asleep, after having passed several wakeful nights. He would not awaken her, but went out to see old Jaco. The poor brute lay panting, and was now evidently drawing near his end. At John’s approach he turned his head toward him, feebly wagged his tail, and gave a low whine. After a while he rose on his feet, and staggered to the door, which John opening, the dog made out to reach the middle of the yard, when he fell and lay gasping. His master bent over him, and gently patting him, spoke soothingly; at which Jaco opened his eyes and made a feeble attempt to lick the kind hand which caressed him. At this instant a light breeze swept by; and as John felt it wave the hair on his brow and flutter for a moment on his cheek with the feeling of the balmy spring, it was singularly associated with recollections of his brother, whose image it brought to his side with all the vividness of reality. As, like a light breath, it passed to Jaco, the dying animal started suddenly and rose on his haunches, snuffed eagerly in the air three times—stopped—then gave one long-protracted howl, when he fell, quietly stretched himself out to his full length—and poor Jaco lay stiffening in death. John watched him for a minute or two, when a low sob might have been heard from him as he turned away, and took his course through the garden and fields to the water side. Judith, on this afternoon, felt a weight on her spirits, wholly unknown to her before. She could not entirely conceal her depression from her parents, and they were not surprised at it, in the present juncture of affairs in the Fayerweather family. She, however, could not have given this as the cause of her depression, had it been inquired of her, for this day her mind had been less occupied with the trial, and its probable issue, than it had been for a week previous, and she felt unable to account for the sadness which oppressed her. Her father, at length, went out to see if he could not pick up some news, and Judith, after in vain attempting to rally herself, went up to her little cupola.