“Who is he?”

“What is the matter with him!”

“Is he ill?”

“Has he fainted?”

“Has he been hurt?”

“Has an accident happened?”

“Is there a doctor to be had?”

All these questions were asked in the same breath by the various individuals of the crowd that had collected around the insensible boy; but none seemed ready with an answer.

“Is there no one here who can tell who he is?” inquired a tall, gray-haired, mild-looking man, stooping to raise the prostrate form.

“Yes; it is Ishmael Worth!” answered Hamlin, the bookseller, who was a newcomer upon the scene.

“Ishmael Worth?  Hannah Worth’s nephew?”

“Yes; that is who he is.”

“Then stand out of the way, friends; I will take charge of the lad,” said the gray-haired stranger, lifting the form of the boy in his arms, and gazing into his face.

“He is not hurt; he is only in a dead faint, and I had better take him home at once,” continued the old man, as he carried his burden to a light wagon that stood in the street in charge of a negro, and laid him carefully on the cushions.  Then he got in himself, and took the boy’s head upon his knees, and directed the negro to drive gently along the road leading to the weaver’s.  And with what infinite tenderness the stranger supported the light form; with what wistful interest he contemplated the livid young face.  And so at an easy pace they reached the hill hut.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

DARKNESS.

  With such wrong and woe exhausted, what I suffered and occasioned—­
    As a wild horse through a city, runs, with lightning in his eyes,
  And then dashing at a church’s cold and passive wall impassioned,
    Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies—­
  So I fell struck down before her!  Do you blame me, friends, for weakness? 
    ’Twas my strength of passion slew me! fell before her like a stone;
  Fast the dreadful world rolled from me, on its roaring wheels of blackness! 
    When the light came, I was lying in this chamber—­and alone.

  —­E.B.  Browning.

Hannah Worth was sitting over her great wood fire and busily engaged in needlework when the door was gently pushed open and the gray-haired man entered, bearing the boy in his arms.

Hannah looked calmly up, then threw down her work and started from her chair, exclaiming: 

“Reuben Gray! you back again! you! and—­who have you got there—­Ishmael?  Good Heavens! what has happened to the poor boy?”

“Nothing to frighten you, Hannah, my dear; he has fainted, I think, that is all,” answered Reuben gently, as he laid the boy carefully upon the bed.

“But, oh, my goodness, Reuben, how did it happen? where did you find him?” cried Hannah, frantically seizing first one hand and then the other of the fainting boy, and clapping and rubbing them vigorously.