No blood flowed, and the apothecary having pronounced the stranger dead, proposed, with the aid of Tracy, to remove him to a bed; and as there was none below, they had to carry him up stairs, the girl preceding them with a light, and leading the way into a room where a small tent bedstead without curtains, two straw-bottomed chairs, with a rickety table, and cracked looking-glass, formed nearly all the furniture; but some articles of female attire lying about, betrayed to whom the apartment belonged, and lent it an interest for Tracy. Whilst making these arrangements for the dead but few words were spoken. The girl looked pale and serious, but said little; the young man would have liked to ask a hundred questions, but did not feel himself entitled to ask one; and the apothecary, who seemed a quiet, taciturn person, only observed that the stranger appeared to have died of disease of the heart, and inquired whether he was a relation of the family. "No," replied the girl; "he's no relation of ours--his name is Aldridge." "Not Ephraim Aldridge?" said the apothecary. "Yes; Mr. Ephraim Aldridge," returned she: "my father was one of his clerks formerly." "You had better send to his house immediately," said Mr. Adams. "I forget whether he has any family?" "None but his nephew, Mr. Jonas," returned the girl. "I'll go there directly, and tell him." "Your father seems in bad health?" observed Mr. Adams, as he quitted the room, and proceeded to descend the stairs. "Yes; he has been ill a long time," she replied, with a sad countenance; "and nobody seems to know what's the matter with him." "Have you had any advice for him," inquired the apothecary. "Oh, yes, a great deal, when first he was ill; but nobody did him any good." By this time they had reached the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Adams, who now led the van, instead of going out of the street door, turned into the parlor again. "Well, sir," said he, addressing Lane, "this poor gentleman is dead. I should have called in somebody else had I earlier known who he was; but it would have been useless, life must have been extinct half an hour before I was summoned. Why did you not send for me sooner?" "I was out," replied the girl, answering the question that had been addressed to her father. "Mr. Aldridge had sent me away for something, and when I returned I found him on the floor, and my father almost fainting. It was a dreadful shock for him, being so ill." "How did it happen?" inquired Mr. Adams, again addressing Lane. A convulsion passed over the sick man's face, and his lip quivered as he answered in a low sepulchral tone. "He was sitting on that chair, talking about--about his nephews, when he suddenly stopped speaking, and fell forward. I started up, and placed my hands against his breast to save him, and then he fell backward upon the floor."