ove up to Henry Donnelly's door. The
three men who accompanied it hesitated before they knocked, and, when
the door was opened, looked at each other with pale, sad faces, before
either spoke. No cries followed the few words that were said, but
silently, swiftly, a room was made ready, while the men lifted from the
straw and carried up stairs an unconscious figure, the arms of which
hung down with a horrible significance as they moved. He was not dead,
for the heart beat feebly and slowly; but all efforts to restore his
consciousness were in vain. There was concussion of the brain the
physician said. He had been thrown from his horse, probably alighting
upon his head, as there were neither fractures nor external wounds.
All that night and next day the tenderest, the most unwearied care was
exerted to call back the flickering gleam of life. The shock had been
too great; his deadly torpor deepened into death.

In their time of trial and sorrow the family received the fullest
sympathy, the kindliest help, from the whole neighborhood. They had
never before so fully appreciated the fraternal character of the society
whereof they were members. The plain, plodding people living on the
adjoining farms became virtually their relatives and fellow-mourners.
All the external offices demanded by the sad occasion were performed for
them, and other eyes than their own shed tears of honest grief over De
Courcy's coffin. All came to the funeral, and even Simon Pennock, in
the plain yet touching words which he spoke beside the grave, forgot the
young man's wandering from the Light, in the recollection of his frank,
generous, truthful nature.

If the Donnellys had sometimes found the practical equality of life in
Londongrove a little repellent they were now gratefully moved by the
delicate and refined ways in which the sympathy of the people sought to
express itself. The better qualities of human nature always develop a
temporary good-breeding. Wherever any of the family went, they saw the
reflection of their own sorrow; and a new spirit informed to their eyes
the quiet pastoral landscapes.

In their life at home there was little change. Abraham Bradbury had
insisted on sending his favorite grandson, Joel, a youth of twenty-two,
to take De Courcy's place for a few months. He was a shy quiet creature,
with large brown eyes like a fawn's, and young Henry Donnelly and he
became friends at once. It was believed that he would inherit the
far