ily--but with respect--half reproachfulness--and an
unmistakable tenderness.

"Oh, Willy! Willy!" I heard her answer. "Somebody said you came here at
night, and I couldn't rest. Oh, dear. They'll murder you! I know they
will. Don't, oh!--"

My ears took in the sense no further, though her pleading voice still
reached my ears. A few moments, and they were out of sight.

Nearly two hours afterward, as I was ascending to my chamber, a man
brushed quickly by me. I glanced after him, and recognized the person
of young Hammond. He was going to the room of Harvey Green!

NIGHT THE SEVENTH.

SOWING THE WIND.

The state of affairs in Cedarville, it was plain, from the partial
glimpses I had received, was rather desperate. Desperate, I mean, as
regarded the various parties brought before my observation. An eating
cancer was on the community, and so far as the eye could mark its
destructive progress, the ravages were tearful. That its roots were
striking deep, and penetrating, concealed from view, in many
unsuspected directions, there could be no doubt. What appeared on the
surface was but a milder form of the disease, compared with its hidden,
more vital, and more dangerous advances.

I could not but feel a strong interest in some of these parties. The
case of young Hammond had, from the first, awakened concern; and now a
new element was added in the unlooked-for appearance of his mother on
the stage, in a state that seemed one of partial derangement. The
gentleman at whose office I met Mr. Harrison on the day before--the
reader will remember Mr. H. as having come to the "Sickle and Sheath"
in search of his son--was thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the
village, and I called upon him early in the day in order to make some
inquiries about Mrs. Hammond. My first question, as to whether he knew
the lady, was answered by the remark:

"Oh, yes. She is one of my earliest friends."

The allusion to her did not seem to awaken agreeable states of mind. A
slight shade obscured his face, and I noticed that he sighed
involuntarily.

"Is Willy her only child?"

"Her only living child. She had four; another son, and two daughters;
but she lost all but Willy when they were quite young. And," he added,
after a pause,--"it would have been better for her, and for Willy, too,
if he had gone to a better land with them."

"His course of life must be to her a terrible affliction." said I.

"It is destroying her reason,