“We are Henry Ridgeley’s mother and brother,” said Barton.  “Is he still alive?”

The question indicated his utter hopelessness of his brother’s condition.

“Come in this way, into the parlor,” said the lady; and stepping out, “Mother,” she called, “Mr. Ridgeley’s mother has come.  Please step this way.”

A moment later, a tall, elderly lady, sad-faced as was her daughter, and much agitated, entered the room.

“My mother,” said the younger lady.  “I am Mrs. Hitchcock.”

“Your son—­” said the elder lady.

“Take me to him at once, I pray you!  Let me see him!  I am his mother!  Who shall keep me from him?”

“Mother,” said Barton, stepping up and placing his hands about her, “don’t you feel it?  Henry is dead.  I knew it ere we stepped in.”

“Dead! who says he is dead?  He is not dead!”

“Tell her,” said Barton; “she is heroic:  let her know the worst.”

“Take me to him!” she said, as they remained silent.

Up the stairs, in a dimly-lighted room, past two or three young men, and a kind neighbor or two, they conducted her; and there, composed as if in slumber, with his grand head thrown back, and his fine strong face fully upward, she found her third-born, growing chill in death.  She sprang forward—­arrested herself when within a step of him, and gazed.  The light passed from her own eye, and the warmth from her face; a spasm shook her, and nothing more.

She did not shriek; she did not faint; she made no outcry,—­scarcely a visible sign; but steadily and almost stonily she gazed on her dead, until the idea of the awful change came fully to her.  The chill passed from her face and manner; and seating herself on the bed,—­“You won’t mind me, ladies.  You can do no more for him.  Leave him to me for a little;” and she bent over and kissed his pallid lips, and laid her face tenderly to his, and lifted with her thin fingers the damp masses of his hair, brown and splendid, like Bart’s, but darker, and without the wave.

“What a grand and splendid man you had become, Henry! and I may toy with and caress you now, as when you were a soft and beautiful baby, and you will permit me!” and lifting herself up, she steadfastly gazed at his emaciated face and shrunken temples, and opening his bosom, and baring its broad and finely-formed contour, she scanned it closely.

“Oh, why could not I see and know, and be warned!  I thought he could not die!  Oh, I thought that all I had would remain! that in their father God had taken all he would reclaim from me! that I should go, and together we should adorn a place where they should come to us!  Oh, Merciful Father!” and the storm of agony, such as uproots and sweeps away weak natures, came upon her.

As for Barton, his sensibilities were stunned and paralyzed, while his mind was left to work free and clear.  All his anguish was for his mother; for himself, the moment had not come.  He was appalled to feel the almost indifference with which he looked upon the remains of his manly and high-souled brother, and he repeated over and over to himself:  “Henry is dead! he is dead!  Don’t you hear? don’t you know?  He is dead!  Why don’t you mourn?”