ion; for
a distance between myself and my dear old home--that home which I was
about to plunge into troubled waters. The peacefulness oppressed me.

About one o'clock I opened my door as softly as possible, and stole
silently downstairs--but not so silently that my mother's quick ear did
not catch the slight jarring of my door.

The night-bell hung in my room, and occasionally I was summoned away at
hours like this to visit a patient. She called to me as I crept down the
stairs.

"Martin, what is the matter?" she whispered, over the banisters.

"Nothing, mother; nothing much," I answered. "I shall be home again in
an hour or two. Go to bed, and go to sleep. Whatever makes you so
thin-eared?"

"Are you going to take Madam?" she asked, seeing my whip in my hand.
"Shall I ring up Pellet?"

"No, no!" I said; "I can manage well enough. Good-night again, my
darling old mother."

Her pale, worn face smiled down upon me very tenderly as she kissed her
hand to me. I stood, as if spellbound, watching her, and she watching
me, until we both laughed, though somewhat falteringly.

"How romantic you are, my boy!" she said, in a tremulous voice.

"I shall not stir till you go back to bed," I answered, peremptorily;
and as just then we heard my father calling out fretfully to ask why the
door was open, and what was going on in the house, she disappeared, and
I went on my way to the stables.

Madam was my favorite mare, first-rate at a gallop when she was in good
temper, but apt to turn vicious now and then. She was in good temper
to-night, and pricked up her ears and whinnied when I unlocked the
stable-door. In a few minutes we were going up the Grange Road at a
moderate pace till we reached the open country, and the long, white,
dusty roads stretched before us, glimmering in the moonlight. I turned
for St. Martin's, and Madam, at the first touch of my whip on her
flanks, started off at a long and steady gallop.

It was a cool, quiet night in May. A few of the larger fixed stars
twinkled palely in the sky, but the smaller ones were drowned in the
full moonlight. The largest of them shone solemnly and brightly in
afield of golden green just above the spot where the sun had set hours
before. The trees, standing out with a blackness and distinctness never
seen by day, appeared to watch for me and look after me as I rode along,
forming an avenue of silent but very stately spectators; and to my
fancy, for my fancy was highly e