Another sorrow had been lately added to his life; the messenger who had been sent into the lower country to inform Gran Erring of her daughter’s death returned a few days later with the information that my grandmother and grandfather were both dead. We had been so taken up with our own affairs of late that we had scarcely thought of them, as often we did not hear for a year at a time how they fared; and Jo felt that he had neglected them, although he knew they were never in need, for regularly every quarter he sent them an amount of money amply sufficient for their small necessities, which was partly in payment for the mill site, and according to agreement, though he had long since paid more than the place was worth. My grandfather had a relative in the lower country,--whether it was a brother, a sister, or an uncle, I never knew, nor do I know yet, our family relations were always so miserable,--and this relative, having probably heard of our other distresses, never notified us of his death, or that of his wife, which occurred a few months later. It was very disgraceful, and I felt almost as much humiliation over it as Jo. The house and mill looked so gray when I came in sight of them that they reminded me of ghosts, although it was more from neglect than age, for neither of them was old, and there was a general air of decay everywhere which said plainly enough that something was wrong. The traveller who passed that way would have remarked it; he could not have known what it was, but he would have felt certain that a disappointed man lived in the house and carried on business in the mill. I have thought that the trees shading the mill pond drooped their heads in mortification at the history of the place, and certainly the water was quiet and subdued, like the master, except when it dashed into the race and after a furious onslaught on its old enemy, the wheel, fell exhausted into the peaceful river below. I came upon the place late in the afternoon, at least half a year after Mateel went away, and seeing customers about the mill I went down there to find the proprietor, but the assistant was working alone, and said that Jo was probably up at the house. Going in there and failing to find him in the lower rooms, I went up the stairs, where I found him asleep in his room, but the noise of my footsteps awakened him. As he shook hands with me I could not help thinking of the skeleton that kept him awake at night, making it necessary for him to sleep during the day, for he was pale and haggard, and I am not certain but that I looked around for the closet in which it was kept.