I have a recollection of feeling faint and sick after reading the letter, and when I started up to go home, I remember that I staggered like a drunken man, and reeled along the street in such a manner that those whom I passed surely thought I was returning from a night’s debauch. My first thought was that the best thing I could do was to give the office to Martin, and take my mother, and leave the country, too, before any one knew of the disgrace, but when I remembered the advice in the letter with reference to the business, I knew it was his deliberate judgment that I should stay and live it down; and he must have thought of it a great deal. A thousand disturbing thoughts passed through my mind as I went along, and once when I went into an old and vacant house to avoid meeting a party of people who were coming toward me, the first feeling of faintness returned so strong that I was compelled to lie down on a heap of straw and rubbish. My greatest dread in it all was to break the news to my unhappy mother, and trying to brace myself with the thought that I was now entrusted with grave responsibilities, and no longer a boy dependent on the advice of another, I passed down the street and into the house. After considerable search I found my mother seated in a low chair in the kitchen, as I had seen her a hundred times before, but for some reason--I could not explain it then, nor can I now--I felt that she had sat there all night, and that she knew that he had gone. There was a certain timid, frightened look in her eyes when I came in, an inexpressible grief in her manner, and so much sorrow in the tears which came afresh at sight of me, which convinced me that I had nothing to tell her, and I learned afterwards that he had told her what he had written me before leaving, and that he had shaken hands with her on parting, and begged her not to be distressed. My first action was to pull down all the blinds at the windows and lock all the doors, for I was determined that no one should enter the house that day, and I hurriedly carried in a supply of wood and water, as though we were to live that way a good many days, or that we should live in the house forever, without seeing any one. As the day wore away, I found my determination increasing to make the best of it, and though I tried to rally my mother, she would say nothing. Finally I gently forced her to leave the low chair, and lie down, where she covered her head, and sobbed the livelong day.