The mason did tolerably well at his trade in his new home for a few years, though it was not a business at which a fortune could be easily made in that rural section of the country. It was not a prohibition State, which seemed to make it all the worse for the head of this family; for he had contracted the habit of drinking moderately when, as a young man, he had been a stage-driver, and it had grown upon him in his new home. Titus had not become a sot, or even a very heavy drinker, before the death of his brother; but he regularly imbibed his whiskey, and to some extent his habit affected his manners and his morals. He had always appeared to be extremely devoted to the colonel, and even fawned upon him, during his residence in Barcreek; and he was always kindly treated and assisted financially when he needed help. Colonel Lyon died suddenly at the age of fifty. He had never been married, and had no children to whom he could leave his property. About a year before his decease he paid a visit of a month to his brother Noah, the youngest of the three brothers, in his native town. The latter was a substantial man, who held a very respectable position in the town; he had been somewhat distinguished among his fellow-citizens, and had been the incumbent of several town officers. Noah Lyon was forty years old at the time of his brother's death, with a good woman for a wife, who was in every sense a helpmate to her husband. They had two children of their own, a boy and a girl, Dexter and Hope. Cyrus, a fourth brother of the Lyons, had lost his life in a freshet in Vermont, where he had settled as a farmer; and his wife had perished with him, leaving two small children, Artemas and Dorcas. He had not left property enough to pay his debts; but Noah promptly adopted the little ones, and for ten years he had cared for and supported them as though they had been his own. Noah had suggested to Titus that he should take one of them to his home, while he received the other in his own family; but his brother pleaded the poor health of his wife for not doing so, and the little ones had reached the ages of seventeen and fifteen when they were removed to Kentucky. Noah and his wife treated them in every respect as their own children, and no one could have asked a better home for them. They called their uncle and aunt by the endearing names of father and mother. At the death of Colonel Lyon, the telegraphic message announcing the sad event had been immediately followed by a letter from Colonel Cosgrove, summoning Noah to the late home of the deceased. To the intense disappointment of Titus, the Riverlawn plantation had been left to Noah, with the fifty-one slaves, and everything connected with the place. Titus had set his heart upon the possession of the estate; for it would give him a generous support without manual labor.