Raymond rung his friend’s hand, and then stepped from the cars, which soon rolled heavily from the depot.  Faster and faster sped the train on its pathway over streamlet and valley, meadow and woodland, until at last the Queen City, with its numerous spires, was left far behind.  From the car windows Fanny watched the long blue line of hills, which marks the Kentucky shore, until they, too, disappeared from view.

For a time now we will leave her to the tender mercies of the Ohio railroad, and a Lake Erie steamer, and hurrying on in advance, we will introduce the reader to the home where once had sported Richard Wilmot and his sister Kate.  It stood about a half a mile from the pleasant rural village of C——­, in the eastern part of New York.  The house was large and handsome, and had about it an air of thrift and neatness, which showed its owner to be a farmer, who not only understood his business, but also attended to it himself.  Between the house and the road was a large grassy lawn, on which was growing many a tall, stately maple and elm, under whose wide-spreading branches Kate and her brother had often played during the gladsome days of their childhood.  A long piazza ran around two sides of the building.  Upon this piazza the family sitting room opened.

Could we have entered that sitting room the day on which our travelers arrived, we should have seen a fine-looking, middle-aged lady, whose form and features would instantly have convinced us that we looked upon the mother of Kate.  Yes, what Kate Miller is now, her mother was once; but time and sorrow have made inroads upon her dazzling beauty, and here and there the once bright locks of auburn are now silvered over, and across the high white brow are drawn many deep-cut lines.  Since Kate last saw her mother, these lines have increased, for the bursting heart has swelled with anguish, and the dark eye has wept bitter tears for the son who died far away from his childhood’s home.  Even now the remembrance of the noble youth, who scarce two years ago, left her full of life and health, makes the tear drop start as she says aloud, “How can I welcome back my darling Kate, and know that he will never come again!”

The sound of her voice aroused old Hector, the watchdog, who had been lying in the sun upon the piazza.  Stretching his huge limbs and shaking his shaggy sides, he stalked into the sitting room, and going up to his mistress laid his head caressingly in her lap.  The sight of Hector made Mrs. Wilmot’s tears flow afresh, for during many years he had been the faithful companion of Richard, whose long absence he seemed seriously to mourn.  For days and weeks he had watched by the gate, through which he had seen his young master pass, and when at last the darkness of night forbade a longer watch, he would lay his head on the ground and give vent to his evident disappointment in a low, mournful howl.

Mrs. Wilmot was not superstitious; but when, day after day, the same sad cry was repeated, it became to her an omen of coming evil; and thus the shock of her son’s death, though none the less painful, was not quite as great as it would otherwise have been.  For Kate, too, old Hector had wept, but not so long or so mournfully; still he remembered her, and always evinced his joy whenever her name was spoken.